“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” said Russell Vought, the current administration’s director of the federal Office of Management and Budget. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down … We want to put them in trauma.”
The deliberate strategy to traumatize federal workers is an attack on human integration. When people are intentionally placed under chronic stress and fear, it disrupts their ability to stay regulated, reflect, connect, and collaborate. It compromises mental flexibility, emotional balance, and a sense of coherence, all foundational elements of well-being and resilience.
A system that causes harm to the people within it creates dis-integration at every level: individual, relational, and institutional. Fear-based environments do not foster creativity, integrity, or productivity. Instead, they lead to fragmentation, isolation, and reactive behaviors. Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) emphasizes that sustainable and healthy systems must support the nervous systems of all individuals, fostering connection, safety, and the capacity to thrive together. A governance strategy rooted in trauma is inherently anti-relational and anti-human.
