Conspiracy of Silence

Trauma survivors and their offspring have been the topic of a large body of psychological research both clinical and empirical in nature. Those providing trauma care services are not always able to fully attend to the emotional impact of trauma on survivors. This may be driven by factors such as caregiver stress, motivation to minimize client displays of distress, or identification of complex traumatic disorders or factors related to organizational policies that lead to underrepresentation or misrepresentation of client care requirements. The conspiracy of silence, a construct first identified by Yael Danieli initially referring to Holocaust survivors, does a good job of explaining these clinician response factors. In this discussion, the conspiracy of silence could be more widely expressed as it relates to other populations.

However, ...