Looking for psychology term, perhaps from Herman's Trauma and Recovery

July 18, 2012 1:36 PM

Do you know the name of the mental disorder or syndrome or complex in child abuse survivors where they can be reported as being "geniuses at doing the absolute minimum necessary to survive"? As best as I can recall this phrase comes from Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman but none of those words seems salient enough to pull what I want with a search engine.

The dynamics of this (as best as I can recall) is the child feels their survival is at stake and they are in energy conservation mode all the time--they feel that any exertion that could be described as "meeting more than halfway" or "going the extra mile" or similar could be a fatal over exertion. They get the minimum report card. They do the minimum chores. They go along with almost anything. They have no assertiveness. They are nearly invisible. They will sometimes follow on into an adult lifetime of underachieving. I briefly scanned a copy of Herman's book and I could not find it so I could easily be misremembering that part, but I am almost sure it came from a book of that type.

Thank you in advance!

posted by bukvich to health & fitness (9 answers total)

Psychological constriction.
posted by liketitanic at 1:51 PM on July 18, 2012

I found it by searching "survival" in Herman's book.
posted by liketitanic at 1:53 PM on July 18, 2012

liketitanic do you have a chapter for that? I have the 1992 edition and the index does not have "survival", only "survivor mission", pp 207-211 and that part of the book is not the thing I am wondering about at all.
posted by bukvich at 2:28 PM on July 18, 2012

"Herman suggests “[w]hen the victim has been reduced to the goal of simple survival, psychological constriction becomes an essential form of adaptation. This narrowing applies to every aspect of life –to relationships, activities, thoughts, memories, emotions, and even sensations– …this constriction…also leads to a kind of atrophy in the psychological capacities that have been suppressed and to the overdevelopment of a solitary inner life.” Page 88 of the version you linked to.
posted by liketitanic at 2:44 PM on July 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

Not sure of the edition, but on Google Books, it looks like there are relevant hits on pages 42 and 87.
posted by endless_forms at 2:47 PM on July 18, 2012

OK I found the constriction part on p. 87 at this linky.

This information is useful but it is not exactly what I had in mind. In that passage Doctor Herman is talking about the survivors as adept or resourceful at acts of dissociation. What I am trying to get at is survivors who are adept at practical real world subsistence activities (like finding the cheapest food or shelter) and who are adept at practical real world skills of conflict avoidance (like people don't pick fights with them because people do not even notice them). The phrase that sticks with me is "genius at doing the absolute minimum necessary to survive". Which I thought came from her book but not with a very high level of certainty. Say probability ~ .667.

Thanks for the google books heads-up though; I didn't realize so much of the text would be there. It seems like every time I look at a book on google books the sucker is 95% blank.
posted by bukvich at 3:50 PM on July 18, 2012

I tried some other terms--minimum, least, little--but nothing came up.
posted by liketitanic at 6:11 PM on July 18, 2012

Maybe "survival mode"?
posted by meepmeow at 6:32 PM on July 18, 2012

I would suggest looking in the DSM under Post Traumatic Stress Response and/or Borderline Personality Disorder. There are so many similar but different responses to trauma. Also, you may find what you are looking for by searching PTSD and Attachment Theory.
Years ago, the theory "fear of success" was big and maybe searching PTSD & Fear of Success might result in some terms.
Another piece on Herman's theory of trauma. It might give you some ideas for searching.
posted by what's her name at 6:47 AM on July 19, 2012