Trauma & Humanism: How the Humanities Can Contribute to the Treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

Abstract

By exploring texts ranging from Cicero and Sophocles to modern work by Jonathan Shay and Bryan Doerries, this paper seeks to examine the role that trauma has played within the humanist tradition and what humanism can contribute to modern understandings of war trauma. This research begins with an exploration of how trauma shaped the work and lives of the early humanists. For instance, the inward turn of Montaigne and Petrarch can be understood as a response to the trauma of the plague and religious wars that surrounded them. These humanist thinkers responded to the loss of special comrades by retreating from society and escaping to therapeutic reading and writing. The work of the ancients was useful in helping the early humanists respond to their own trauma. Similarly, the work of the ancients and early humanists is extremely useful within modern medical humanities. This value is perhaps best seen in Jonathan Shay's work Achilles in Vietnam, and Bryan Doerries' work with the Theatre of War using the play Ajax. These ancient stories open a dialogue that crosses time and culture. We can see ancient examples of what we now know as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (or PTSD), and trace common themes as Shay did in the book Achilles in Vietnam. When read in conjunction with the ancient plays Ajax, Philoctetes and Hecuba, the similarities between modern war trauma and the ancient stories studied by the humanists are clear and powerful. All the stories of trauma are individual, ambiguous and uniquely human. This emphasis on human experience and the ability to open a dialogue with the ancients-both present in the human experience and response to trauma - are at the very basis of the humanist project. Thus, the humanities can contribute to the treatment and understanding of PTSD.