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Framing: Life’s Magic Wand (for better or worse)
Many unimaginable cases came across my desk when I was an SVU prosecutor. One, in particular, is etched in my mind. A young girl of about six was forced to live in a war zone. That’s right: forced to live in a war zone. She awoke every morning to shrieks and screams, the knowledge that bombs were exploding around her, killing her neighbors and friends. She was lucky to wake up at all. At her very young age, she was taught that the enemy was constantly sweeping the area looking for her and her family to take them away and hurt them. To kill them. She was accustomed to hiding in her home and holding and aiming a rifle for protection.
Now here’s the kicker: this young girl grew up in a prosperous, reasonably peaceful city in the US. There was no actual war. Nevertheless, her fear was real. The trauma was real. You see, her mother was constantly strung out on meth and truly believed she was in the midst of an active war. To “protect” her daughter, she told her and trained her about this “war.” It was, unfortunately, psychological abuse of an epic proportion.
Now, you’ve probably heard that fear is felt in the amygdala, which then spurs the fight, flight, or freeze response, and that that response, in turn, is what keeps you alive in dangerous situations.
It turns out this is only partly true. The amygdala does react to danger — or perceived…
