> After all, if 51% of the population can handle it, is it really a societal problem worth bothering with? (They can’t, and it is.)
But you are making assumptions just like that: what makes you say 51% of the population can't handle particular types of trauma better than others?
Lots of things we are talking about are really "learned" and have no basis in biology, for instance: society itself is a human construct, and relationship to people around us are clearly built in that context. That does not mean they are not real, just that they can be learned even in a different way, and they surely are.
The reason we should take individual approach is because we can't know in advance who can "handle" a particular stressor in their current situation and who can't (and this is never black or white, all experiences — good and bad — shape us into persons we are). The onus is on those providing the help to provide just enough so we can deal with the situation in a reasonable manner.
Most people's actions are influenced both by stressful, but also by positive events in our lives: that's what makes us, really, "us". And really, everyone experiences what one would call trauma (trauma can be temporary as well).
When an event, positive or negative, influences us in a way where we can't continue to operate according to certain norms, we recognize that as a mental health issue.
So we can either claim that there are no people without mental health issues, which I think is not a very useful "calibration" of the terminology, or we can establish a baseline where we expect people to have some challenges with mental health which we call "normal response to trauma", and focus on those who have exaggerated or diminished responses.
But you are making assumptions just like that: what makes you say 51% of the population can't handle particular types of trauma better than others?
Lots of things we are talking about are really "learned" and have no basis in biology, for instance: society itself is a human construct, and relationship to people around us are clearly built in that context. That does not mean they are not real, just that they can be learned even in a different way, and they surely are.
The reason we should take individual approach is because we can't know in advance who can "handle" a particular stressor in their current situation and who can't (and this is never black or white, all experiences — good and bad — shape us into persons we are). The onus is on those providing the help to provide just enough so we can deal with the situation in a reasonable manner.