Trauma

Trauma is defined as physical injury or psychological or emotional damage.

Physical trauma

Physical trauma is any injury caused by a mechanical or physical agent.

Psychic trauma

Psychic trauma is a psychologically upsetting experience that produces an emotional or mental disorder or otherwise has lasting negative effects on a person's thoughts, feelings, or behavior.

Birth trauma

De Mause (1996) argued that early trauma results in aggressive adult behavior. Jacobsen & Bygdeman (1998) reported an association between birth trauma and adult suicide.

Circumcision trauma

There are no medical indications for infant circumcision, which is a painful, traumatic, non-therapeutic, medically-unnecessary invasive amputative surgery. Infant circumcision still occurs more than 2,000 times a day in the United States. Circumcision trauma includes both physical trauma and psychic trauma. Batteley, Metters & Smith (2023) state, in addition to the physical risks, the psychological risks should receive attention.

Bollinger (2023) reported a preliminary survey comparing intact and circumcised men using the ACE test. The circumcised men had higher ACE scores than the intact men. Bollinger has called for additional study to determine if male genital cutting (circumcision) should be classified as an Adverse Childhood Experience.

Physical circumcision trauma

Circumcision, more properly described as posthectomy, is the surgical excision and amputation of the foreskin of the penis, which permanently removes a significant portion of the epithelium of the penis and destroys the significant and important protective, immunological, sexual, and sensory physiological functions of that structure, and leaves the patient permanently and irreversibly impaired by the loss of those functions.

Results of physical circumcision trauma

Results of physical trauma include:

• Complication
• Sexual effects of circumcision

Psychic circumcision trauma

According to Marilyn Milos, "every man who has a scar on his penis also has a scar on his psyche." The medical community, however, has been slow to recognize the trauma of circumcision.

Although a circumcision may be performed at any age, circumcisions are most commonly performed on newborn boys in the first month of life outside of the mother's womb. At that tender age general anesthesia is too dangerous to administer, so newborn boys receive only minimal pain relief at best and, in many cases, none at all.

Circumcised boys had a higher pain response at time of vaccination six months later as compared with intact boys, showing that the nervous system had been permanently sensitized to heightened pain sensation.

Taddio et al. (1997) concluded:

“

Although postsurgical central sensitisation (allodynia and hyperalgesia) can extend to sites of the body distal from the wound, suggesting a supraspinal effect, the long-term consequences of surgery done without anaesthesia are likely to include post-traumatic stress as well as pain. It is, therefore, possible that the greater vaccination response in the infants circumcised without anaesthesia may represent an infant analogue of a post-traumatic stress disorder triggered by a traumatic and painful event and re-experienced under similar circumstances of pain during vaccination. – Taddio et al. (1997)

Boyle & Ramos (2019) reported PTSD in circumcised boys in the Philippine Islands where Tuli remains the usual practice.

Results of psychic circumcision trauma

Results of psychic circumcision trauma include:

• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• Adamant father syndrome
• Psychological issues of male circumcision

Ethics

Two ethicists, Myers & Earp (2020), have conducted a detailed review and analysis of the claimed medical benefits of non-therapeutic circumcision. They have determined that the alleged benefits are not material, so they do not support granting of consent by a surrogate. Moreover, they comment that even the most perfectly executed surgery produces trauma and harm to the patient. Circumcision also produces tissue loss and loss of function, therefore, circumcision should be performed only after the individual reaches the age of consent. Consent by a surrogate for a non-therapeutic circumcision is an unethical practice.

Video

Circumcision: Trauma, Psychological Effects, Cultural Beliefs

See also

• Circumstraint
• Pain
• Protection of intact newborns in hospital
• Psychological literature about male circumcision
• Ronald Goldman Testifies On Circumcision Trauma At Historic PACE Hearing

External links

• Edel, Dean (17 August 2015). Infant Circumcision And Trauma – With Dr. Dean Edell, Kindred. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
• Tinari, Paul D.. Circumcision Permanently Alters the Brain: The surgery subjected the infant to significant trauma, Circumcision Resource Center. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
• Anonymous (17 February 2016). Extreme trauma from male circumcision causes damage to areas of the brain, International Association of Infant Massage.. Retrieved 14 March 2024.
• Narvaez, Darcia F. (11 January 2015). Circumcision’s Psychological Damage, Psychology Today. Retrieved 14 November 2022.
• Marotta B (17 February 2022). The Cultural Trauma of Circumcision, Hegemon Media. Retrieved 14 November 2022.
• Garrett, Connor (17 December 2023). Circumcision Trauma: The Invisible Elephant in the Room, Intact America. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
• Garrett, Connor (2 February 2024). A Timeline of Circumcision Suffering: A Detailed Look, Intact America. Retrieved 9 February 2024.
• Garrett, Connor. Severed Intimacy: Navigating Circumcision Trauma in The Bedroom, Intact America. Retrieved 9 May 2024.