5 Steps in Trauma Bond Formation

Hey there everybody and welcome to this video on the five stages of trauma bond formation i'm your host doctor donnellice snipes if you are interested in working with people who have a history of trauma a masterclass in trauma informed care is available at allce dot com tic let's talk a little bit about what a trauma bond is before we start talking about how it's formed a trauma bond is a connection between two or more people in which at least one person is a victim and the other person is an abuser and the victim rationalizes or justifies the abuse to survive what seems to be an inescapable situation the victim begins to believe that the abuser's abuse shows that they love me and they may start to believe that the abuse is their fault if i were only better i would not make them so angry it's important to remember that trauma bonds are a common symptom of complex ptsd remember in complex ptsd there is a traumatic event that is repetitive or ongoing and the victim perceives that there is no hope of escape so it sounds a lot like what happens in when a trauma bond is formed what are the stages of trauma bond formation and it's important to think about these stages because if you recognize them early then you can potentially leave a relationship before it becomes oppressive before you start feeling completely powerless to leave so the first stage in a trauma bond often is the honeymoon or the love bombing stage now trauma bonds can occur between couples if you will they can occur between parent and child they can occur between employer and employee specifically in trafficking situations and there are probably other circumstances but we're going to talk about those three so in a dating relationship for example there's the honeymoon phase and the love bombing where the abuser is just showering the person with compliments and gifts and love and they are just the victim is feeling so wonderful so awesome and they don't want this feeling to ever end once the abuser has the person kind of addicted to feeling that way then they start moving to make the victim dependent on them and that can be moving them in so now they don't have a a place of their own so they can't escape quite as easily maybe starting to control their finances maybe starting to encourage them to make decisions in which they are trusting of the of the abuser and sometimes these are going to be have positive consequences because at this point the abuser hasn't moved into the controlling phase at this point it's not love bombing anymore but the abuser is still laying that groundwork once the person is to a point that they trust the abuser then the abuser moves into isolating them they start demanding all of that person's time they start being much more concerned about where the person goes the abuser does not want the victim to have support anywhere else the abuser does not want the victim to feel like they have any route of escape the abuser does not want the victim to encounter anyone that might undo the narrative that they are getting ready to start spinning then they move into criticism and gaslighting they start to blame the victim when things go wrong and manipulate them into believing their narrative and anything that goes wrong it's your fault i want to love you i want to shower you with love and with gifts the way we did when we first got together but you just keep screwing up and how is anybody supposed to love you when you screw up all the time so the abuser is now breaking down the self esteem of of the victim making them feel unlovable and incompetent and incapable so the victim starts to feel even more dependent even more reliant on the abuser because they start thinking well if i'm this much of a screw up there's no way anybody else wants me there's no way i can survive on my own so now the abuser has control the victim doesn't know what to believe and the only way they can feel safe and loved is to appease the abuser remember at this point they've been isolated from their family and the abuser has probably turned them against their family through gaslighting and the only person the victim has at this point that they believe actually loves them is the abuser and the victim does believe that the abuser loves them that is one of the things that's so nefarious about a trauma bond is that eventually the victim gets to the place where in order to survive this they have to see it in a way that makes sense to them so let's talk about a couple different situations honeymoon and love bombing we talked about relationships they get together they're showered with attention with praise then trust and dependency the abuser moves the person in maybe they start a joint bank account and then isolation the abuser starts saying no you know what i don't think we're going to go to your families for the for for vacation or for the holidays we're going to go to my families or we're going to stay here i have to work so why don't we just stay here and they start creating wedges between the victim and the and the victim's family and the victim's friends so they become more isolated many times the abuser will also go so far as to have the victim start staying home completely not going to work where they might get alternate input from other people this doesn't always happen but they make sure the the abuser makes sure to engage in sufficient gaslighting that the victim is going to defend the abuser to their co workers you know you just you wouldn't understand he's under so much stress it's not his fault or fault etcetera then the criticism and g gaslighting as i mentioned is blaming the victim when things go wrong and manipulating manipulating them into believing their narrative so let's look at how this might go in a employer employee situation and this can be between someone and their pimp or employer who brings in somebody from another country for example to work for them the employee comes in and in the in the case of the pimp the the employee may be already alienated from their family to a certain extent so they're vulnerable and the pimp comes in and starts showering them with attention with love with drugs with whatever they need starts creating that dependency in the case of someone who comes in on a visa the or as an illegal the person is now separated from their family from their culture from their friends and they have no way to get back home if the new employers become abusive so now they are they're kind of stuck stuck and especially if they are illegal then they don't they don't feel like they have any recourse which they actually do but they are led to believe that they will be arrested and sent to prison if they report any of the abuse then comes the criticism and the gaslighting and the control of the victim if the videos on this channel have been helpful for you please help us make high quality practical content available to everyone donate at docsnipes dot com donate join the channel at docsnipes dot com join or purchase a thanks on any video that you particularly like trauma bonds can be formed between parents and children where the parents are the abusers and the children recognize they can't survive on their own but it can also go the other way and i see this more often in adult children who are unable to live independently or choose not to live independently where they still live in the household and become abusive of their parents or if in adult children who end up needing to take care of their elderly parent and they begin abusing their elderly parent it can happen between employers and employees in trafficking situations it can happen between adult partners and it can happen between captors and victims which is the standard stockholm syndrome that we stock studied probably in psychology one hundred and one trauma bond development is a very intentional behavior make no mistake the abuser knows what they're doing and the abuser can often be diagnosed with either narcissistic or antisocial personality disorder because they're engaging in this behavior with the intent of controlling another person for their own gain it is not a accidental thing that happens there's a definite grooming process that the individual uses in order to create this trauma bond and trauma bonds because of their very nature because the victim has come to believe that they are completely dependent on on the abuser they can't survive without the abuser and they can't survive if they leave the abuser the abuser might hurt them they have to try to figure out how to make this make sense in their own mind so they start believing that it's them they start believing that the abuser does love them and it's their fault that they are getting abused this makes the trauma bond so hard to break from a third party perspective the victim needs to come to the realization needs to come to the awareness that it's an unhealthy relationship and that involves a lot of deprogramming if you will awareness of the trauma bonding process is the first step step in preventing it if you see the love bombing okay well sometimes love bombing happens just out of sheer you know new relationship energy but then if it moves into trust and dependency then isolation those are huge red warning flags that people need to be aware of and get out before the gaslighting and the controlling begins this obviously was just a video that was designed to help people understand a little bit more about what a trauma bond is in the upcoming videos we'll talk about ways to potentially support people who have a trauma bond and ways to break a trauma bond.