“Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Trauma: On the Fragmentation and Restoration of the Human Soul,” is being sponsored by the Graduation School of Education.

Friday, April 21
8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
McNally Amphitheatre
140 West 62nd St, Lincoln Center Campus

Amelio D’Onofrio, Ph.D., clinical professor and founding director of the Psychological Services Institute at Fordham at GSE, said the conference’s presenters will talk about how relational trauma in particular, shatters our “souls” and uncovers a history we have often concealed from ourselves.

If, for example, a person grew up in a family with substance abuse, or one of their parents was unable to give proper care because of mental illness, the trauma from that experience might make it more difficult to recover from later-life traumas.

“Many of my patients come in, and early on they’ll say ‘I had a perfect childhood; everything was great!’ But as the work continues, we’ll start to entangle traumatic experiences that they may have had, and that are now reactivated by the breakup of a relationship, for example,” he said.

Topics being presented include “Psychotherapy’s Epic Journey: Descent, Dismemberment, and Remembrance;” “Built On A Lie”: Perversion in an Everyday Subject and Donald Trump;” and “Conversion Disorder: Colonial Trauma and the “Souls” of the Barrio.”

D’Onofrio will present one session, “Desire, Despair, and the Presence of an Absence: Relational Trauma and Therapeutic (Re-)Enactments.” He said the thesis of his presentation is that early life traumatic patterns can play actually out in the relationship between patient and therapist. A patient who has never been on the receiving end of an empathetic gesture might not be able to respond to one when a therapist is there for them. This, he said, can sometimes trigger a negative therapeutic reaction.

Presenters were chosen because they represent a diversity of ideas, he said.

“Betsy Hall, a professor and assistant dean of counseling and family therapy at Regis University, is a Jungian who deals with psychoanalysis, myth, stories, and literature. Patricia Gherovici, who is a psychoanalyst and co-founder and director of the Philadelphia Lacan Group, works with poor Hispanic populations in Philadelphia and comes from a Lacanian perspective. Ed Robbins, a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst and clinical director of Dr. Robins & Associates Trauma & Treatment Center, is a Freudian and works with the trauma of violence,” he said.

“Having different theoretical orientations and different voices in the conference will make it a richer experience for the audience.”

For more information, visit the conference webpage.

“There’s a lot of suffering out there; addiction, eating disorders, a sense of boredom and that something is missing,” said Amelio A. D’Onofrio, Ph.D. “And with that comes a profound sense of loneliness, a disconnection, anger, and rage.”

D’Onofrio, clinical professor and director of the Psychological Services Institute in the Graduate School of Education, presented hard numbers from a recent study from the Center for Disease Control of high-school-age students representing a cross section of race and class: 30 percent said that they feel sad or hopeless, 18 percent seriously considered suicide, 14 percent made a plan to kill themselves, and 10 percent attempted suicide.

D’Onofrio shared his remarks with a group of school superintendents from the tri-state region, who gathered at Fordham’s Westchester campus. The March 2 talk, “How the Pressures of Contemporary Life Can Lead to Disconnection, Despair, and Violence,” was chance for GSE faculty members to share research and gather front-line feedback from area educators.

A Rise in Hateful Discourse

The audience of superintendents described seeing “a huge increase in school depression and anxiety,” “more female aggression,” “an inability to regulate responses,” “students [who]are more debilitated,” and an increase in social media and cyber bullying, which is creating a “hateful discourse.”

D’Onofrio said that in the past, once students left school grounds the peer pressures from classmates was left behind, too. But today, with the omnipresence of cell phones and social media, there is no leaving the pressures behind.

‘Now students are physiologically activated all the time,” he said. “The layers of engagement have increased exponentially.”

And along with increased engagement comes stress, said D’Onofrio, though he prefers the term “trauma” to describe what kids are going through today. In addition to peer-to-peer tensions, factors outside of the classroom play a significant role. For some students, chronic poverty and gang violence compound the problem. For others the demands of academic/athletic performance and too many extracurricular activities take a toll.

D’Onofrio took comments from the audience. One supervisor noted that teachers are not trained to deal with trauma, he said, they’re trained to teach; therefore, teachers may not understand the state of mind students are in when they arrive in to class. Another complained of an increase need for counseling that was met with a decrease in funding for such services—all of it playing out against the “thump, thump, thump of social media.”

Steve Jambor, Ph.D., FCRH ’72, GSE ’74, ’76, GSAS ’78, president of Westchester-Putnam School Boards Association, said the nation is in the midst of a “social health crisis,” but that, unfortunately, policymaking is still based upon a definition of “emotional ” that was written before the information age.

A Desire to Connect

“Emotional disturbance [today] isn’t what it was years ago he said. “And policymakers don’t want to know about that and deal with the madness that is arriving today.”

But while students may exhibit outward signs of not wanting help, D’Onofrio said the deeper desire is always to connect, and that’s where teachers can make a difference.

“Stress really sets in motion the ability to self-regulate and the ability to develop a basic sense of trust; when that doesn’t happen, kids withdraw,” he said. “We need to be nurturing and caring, but that doesn’t mean we don’t hold them accountable.

“Be there, challenge, and confront, that’s when a kid feels cared for,” he said. 

The event was sponsored by the GSE.

“Treating Trauma in Children and Adolescents” is being co-sponsored by Fordham’s Graduate School of Education (GSE) and the Archdiocese of New York’s Drug Abuse Prevention Program.

Friday, March 20
9 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
E. Gerald Corrigan Conference Center, 12th Floor
Lowenstein Center, Lincoln Center Campus

Amelio D’Onofrio, PhD, clinical professor and founding director of the Psychological
Services Institute at Fordham at GSE, said the conference will present research and strategies for mental health professionals who work with children and adolescents who have experienced a wide array of traumas.

Some are one-time events such a car accident or rape, while others fall under the term “complex trauma,” such as growing up in a household where there’s mental illness, substance abuse, or emotional neglect.

Children in urban settings, such as those D’Onofrio works with as part of a grant project with the Department of Health and Human Services, also face challenges from gang violence and racism.

“We want to educate health professionals on how trauma is manifested,” he said. “Sometimes we look at acting-out behaviors in children when they misbehave. Those kinds of behaviors can actually be responses to their traumatizing environments. Even difficulties such as hyperactivity can be a developmental response to having been exposed chronically to traumatizing environments.”

Topics being presented include “Treating Traumatic Stress Across the Service System,” “Treating Adolescent Attachment Trauma,” Trauma and Resilience: A Parents Perspective,” and “Trauma Treatment in Schools.”

For more information, visit the GSE webpage

But what if the trauma is not a one-time event? What if a person’s entire world is filled with adversity, flooding her with constant stress and anxiety and preventing her brain from ever recovering?

This the challenge that underlies the treatment of complex, or chronic, trauma, says Amelio D’Onofrio, Ph.D., a clinical professor and director of the Psychological Services Institute in the Graduate School of Education (GSE).

In general, a traumatic experience is one that is so distressing that it overwhelms the brain’s ability to process the event and triggers a set of survival-oriented physiological and psychological responses. Acute trauma refers to a singular event such as a car accident, an assault, or a natural disaster. Complex trauma, though, is more pervasive.

“For instance, if a parent chronically abuses substances and cannot meet a child’s basic needs, that is a traumatic environment for the child. Or if there is violence in the home or in the neighborhood and kids are constantly trying to protect themselves, that is traumatic,” said D’Onofrio, who is also a practicing psychotherapist.

“We expect kids to focus on doing schoolwork and solving complex problems, but they’re so worried about self-protection that their nervous systems have been activated to the point that they can’t focus.”

This year D’Onofrio received a $311,000 grant from the Department of Health and Human Services to design an intervention program for inner-city students who have experienced complex trauma and who otherwise would not be able to receive specialized psychological services.

The grant-funded program, which was implemented in two Bronx middle schools this fall, is divided into ten-week increments over the course of two years. For each set of ten weeks, doctoral students from GSE’s counseling and counseling psychology program run structured group treatment with at-risk students. The team also meets with each student individually at least twice and meets with parents to educate them on the effects of trauma and how it impacts their children.

The goal is to help students start to understand the impact of stressful and traumatic environments and to teach them healthy coping skills so that they will be less likely to turn to gangs or drugs.

“We worked closely with GSE’s Center for Educational Partnerships to select the two schools. One of the schools is serving many recent immigrants from all over the world, and the other school recently had a gang-related stabbing,” D’Onofrio said, referring to an incident this summer in which a 14-year-old student stabbed and killed another student outside their middle school.

D’Onofrio hopes to later develop internships and externships in the schools so that Fordham counseling students can continue working with the middle school students once their ten sessions come to an end.

“I think this a powerful interface between a Jesuit university and the community, a way of giving back and working toward social justice,” he said.

The Graduate School of Education (GSE) was a major sponsor of the two-day conference that brought together thinkers, practitioners and more than 10,000 educators at the New York Hilton in Manhattan.

Meyers discussed his highly acclaimed young adult novels, such as Monster (HarperCollins, 1999), winner of the 2000 Coretta Scott King Author Award, andLockdown (Amistad, 2010). He read an excerpt fromKick (HarperTeen, 2011), which he co-wrote with teenage author Ross Workman.

“Teachers tell me kids are reluctant to read books, yet they will read my books,” he said. “I think it’s because I’ve given them a voice. I went to Stuyvesant High School and dropped out twice. I couldn’t tell teachers what was going on in my life—that my mother was an alcoholic and my family was dysfunctional.”

Myers, who speaks frequently at youth prisons, said that his books resonate with inmates.

“A young prisoner once told me that he has felt the way my characters have felt,” he said.

Growing up in Harlem, Myers said, all he was given to read were works by British writers.

“When I began writing as a child, I’d write ‘Ode to a Fire Hydrant.’ There was something there, but it wasn’t me,” he said, adding that the lack of diversity in literature forced him to reject a lot of himself in his early years.

“I didn’t want to be black or a Harlemite anymore because those things weren’t found in the books I was given to read,” he said. “But when I read James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues, it’s as if it gave me permission to write about black life. I knew I enjoyed writing, but I couldn’t write about my own life before then.”

Chun Zhang, Ph.D, was among a handful of Fordham faculty and administrators to present workshops at the two-day event. Photo by Bruce Gilbert

Myers said he knew he had connected with readers when he gave a talk at a school and a young African-American girl was adamant that he wrote a character wrong.

“She kept saying [the character]wouldn’t do that and I said, ‘I’m onto something here,’” he said.

Myers was blunt about the responsibility of adults in urban areas to push education in general and literacy in particular.

“Education is real freedom,” he said. “We need people publicly addressing this, saying, ‘Not only should you do this; you must do this. This is your future.’”

The Celebration of Teaching and Learning was hosted by public television stations Thirteen/WNET and WLIW 21, among other supporters. Headline speakers included Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, Mehmet Oz, M.D., host of the “Dr. Oz Show” and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Several members of the GSE faculty and administration presented workshops, including:

• Vincent C. Alfonso, Ph.D., professor and associate dean of GSE, on “Assessment of Young Children: Special Considerations for Diverse and Underserved Populations;”

• Carlos R. McRay, Ed.D., associate professor, on “Cultural Collision and Collusion: Reflections on Hip-Hop Culture, Values and Schools;”

• Anita Batisti, Ph.D., associate dean and director of GSE’s Center for Educational Partnerships; Marge Struk, network leader for Fordham’s Partnership Support Organization (PSO); and Joseph Porzio, project associate for PSO, on “What We Should Teach and Why: The Common Core Standards;”

• Amelio D’Onofrio, Ph.D., clinical professor and director of the Psychological Services Institute on “Learning to Love the Bully: Breaking the Cycle of Violence,” and

• Chun Zhang, Ph.D., professor, on “Documenting the Impact of Teacher Candidates’ on Student Behavior and Learning.”

Though he no longer lives in Harlem, Myers said he visits the ever-evolving neighborhood at least once a month.

“People moving into the million-dollar brownstones [in Harlem]are not connecting with that kid whose father is in Green Haven [Correctional Facility] and whose mother on welfare,” he said.

“The Kennedys gave physical fitness a shot in the arm. You’d see pictures of them throwing around a football. We need someone—an Obama, anyone—saying to the kids in these communities, ‘Put a book in your hand,’” Myers said.