To think that Sensory Trauma is behind the Strictly allegations against Giovanni?

[kikir]

Sensory trauma is a concept from the Autistic community - autistic people describe things like a sudden loud noise (eg a door slamming) or being exposed to overly bright lighting as often being a source of extreme distress, where they would likely be no more than a mild irritation to neurotypical people. Autistic people have often been shamed their whole lives for their "overreactions" when in fact their reactions are entirely proportional to their lived experiences.

I'm not autistic, but I am disabled by various other conditions and experience something very similar myself. Having spoken to others with ME/CFS in particular, I believe we as a group experience sensory trauma or something like it too. Some say that things they would've easily taken in their stride before getting ME/CFS (like their boss shouting at them at work), became intolerable and sources of extreme distress, once they'd got the illness, often leaving them shaken for days and needing to take time off to recover.

I'm now wondering if sensory trauma is in large part what's behind the Strictly/Giovanni debacle. It does not appear that there was any physical or sexual assault as that would have resulted in immediate dismissal and also no verbal abuse so bad it would have constituted misconduct. The media are reporting that there is no smoking gun. Which leaves me wondering if this man was just very explosive - erupting with rage at his celeb pupils, who were in a state of extreme exhaustion having been forced to train so hard and so intensively. And thereby causing actual trauma from the assault on the senses while too depleted to be able to cope with it. Has anyone got any thoughts on this?

I guess we may find out later on today unless the report has been delayed.

It’s supposed to be an entertainment programme - not training for the Olympics.

I don’t doubt that teaching an amateur can be frustrating but the teacher should be cooling off rather than losing their shit with someone who is learning. If they don’t have the patience then they shouldn’t be on the show.

No, I don't think for one moment that everyone who felt bullied by Giovanni is autistic or experiencing 'sensory trauma'. Not everything has to be medicalised, you know.

My guess is that the dancers train the celebrities in the same way they've been trained themselves to get to their standard, which is intense and gruelling (same with certain sports). I don't think it occurred to Giovanni (who left home as a child to train as a dancer and hasn't known anything else) that this isn't normal. And I think that's a massive culture shock to certain celebrities. Plus, shouting and temper outbursts and explosive rows are more normal in some cultures than others. My colleague is Italian and when we were both on the same training course at work, he mentioned that cultural differences like that can be a real issue in terms of how behaviours are perceived.

I think it's interesting that the celebs who have allegedly struggled with Giovanni are the ones who hadn't done this kind of thing before and perhaps hadn't experienced the brutal reality of dance training (whereas people like Debbie McGee, Faye Tozer etc definitely had. Also interesting that he dated Ashley Roberts, who he didn't partner with but did meet on the show, who is a trained dancer - presumably she had no issue with him. Georgia May Foote, who was one of his partners, also dated him.

Interestingly, Laura Whitmore, who has complained about him, was paired with him immediately after he split up with Georgia... who was Laura's best friend. Laura admitted shortly afterwards that she was pissed off with him and didn't like him because he'd dumped Georgia. So I take her issues with a pinch of salt.

I'm afraid my observations/experience of Amanda Abbington in general are that I would take literally anything she said with a pinch of salt. And that's all I'm saying about her.

Do I think it's OK to be abusive? No, absolutely not. But I also think that the issue is much more likely to be a mismatch between expectations of what's normal, and a degree of clashing personalities, rather than deliberate abuse. The producers should have considered that letting a professional dancer (who isn't actually a dance teacher) train a complete novice from scratch, without any discussion of methods and expectations with either the dancer or the celeb, might end up like this.

@KreedKafer , excellent points, thank you. 👍

I'm not arguing anyone is autistic. And Amanda does have a dancing background. I don't doubt there are cultural differences in what's considered normal but it also sounds like those who have complained raised their issues repeatedly (setting boundaries in the process that were then repeatedly ignored by the sounds of things).

It's an interesting idea - I know my voice sounds shrill to many, especially those who experience sensory overload - but I don't think sensory trauma is so common that all his partners, with the exception of Debbie, had it before training with him and experienced his coaching the same way.
Occam's razor = he's a shouty git especially when frustrated, who's also quite snarky. That doesn't mean I'm necessarily going to jump at a higher volume but I could well be traumatised after eight hours of it!

I don't think they all had it before training with him either. I'm saying I don't think there has to be an underlying condition at all and that we're all vulnerable to this type of trauma (I've just seen it called Traumatic Sensory Overload on another website). That this type of trauma is a result of our sense being overwhelmed when we're physically and mentally exhausted and our ability to cope with additional stressors is much reduced.