Trauma Is Contagious

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http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/trauma-is-contagious/283856/

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Dr. Robert Motta, a psychology professor at Hofstra University, is the first person to make sense of me in a year and a half.

He tells me about one study in which one monkey watches another on television. The study finds that if the monkey on television is fearful, the watching monkey becomes fearful as well.

Motta is comparing me to the monkey that's watching. He tells me that the watching monkey can't smell anything or sense any danger in the air.

"Are you following me?" Motta asks.

Motta is a cognitive behavioral psychotherapy specialist who studied secondary trauma in Vietnam vets' families. He thinks I have Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder, or STSD.