Writing Trauma: The Intertwining of the Soma, Semiotic, and Symbolic

Abstract

Rather than thinking of writing trauma as “coming to terms with”, some type of teleological endeavor to transcend or reconcile with traumatic experience, I propose that writing trauma involves processes of “being-with” the body, despite the overwhelming, alarming desire to distance the self from the trauma. That is, there is a risk in writing trauma and being-with the body: as the subject writes, they jeopardize the collapse of subjectivity by approaching the abject. The subject who chooses to bring the inner subjective reality of trauma in the body, experienced phenomenologically, into the symbolic, shared social-historical realm approaches such a threshold. I begin with a description of Kristeva’s depiction of the abjection of self, the looming threat behind writing trauma. Next, I look at the relationship between traumatic symptoms and metaphor through the works of Kristeva and Jacques Lacan. After understanding this relationship, I describe Kristeva’s conception of poetic language and assert that it is what best captures the somatic expression of trauma in the body. Last, I make some considerations as to why the subject would choose to write trauma, revisiting the abject, and reflect on the horror of Friedrich Nietzsche’s conception of the eternal return for the trauma survivor.