Do you think that, even when people deny severe injustices that were perpetrated on them, the effects of the injustices continue to exist in their subconscious mind?
Yes, it seems that when people are treated very unjustly, then trauma exists within them even if they are unaware of the connection between the current psychological symptoms and what happened in the past. Sigmund Freud, well over a century ago, was aware that trauma can exist within the subconscious and the goal is to make that which is not conscious now fully conscious. In other words, once insight into the past situation is understood, this aids people in breaking the denial, the repression, or the regression. They then can deal with their reaction to what happened to them. People, for example, may have a problem with trust, or have generalized anxiety symptoms, or deep fatigue and do not know why. When they see the link between current psychological symptoms and unjust events that may have happened years ago, this can act as a motivator to forgive those who perpetrated the injustice, which then can lower the psychological symptoms of trauma. A motivator to start looking courageously at what happened to us years ago is the current unexplained pain of psychological distress. Insight shows us the cause of the distress; forgiveness shows us the way to cure of the distress.
