Concept Of Trauma Research Articles

'Recreating Katalin Street': Reenacting a Haunting Past Utopia as Manifestation and Bodily Testimony to Trauma in Magda Szabó's Katalin Street

This article brings into dialogue the work of Cathy Caruth, a founding figure of trauma theory, with that of Svetlana Boym, an authority within scholarship on nostalgia. In doing so, it aims to showcase that the study of traumatic experience can benefit from a theoretical approach in which both of their perspectives are understood to be inherently intertwined. Despite being seemingly very much opposed in terms of their conceptualizations of trauma, their theories, when considered in light of each other, can in fact be said to make up a trauma-spectrum that traces the different, interconnected levels on which trauma operates and manifests itself. Therefore, by considering them part of a spectrum, new ways for analyzing traumatic experience open up that allow for it to not only be understood in terms of an individual acting out, as Caruth argues, but also as the shared performance of a haunting past utopia, as suggested by Boym. Such a spectrum, as I will demonstrate, is especially useful as a theoretical tool for analyzing the workings of trauma within small-scale communities in which there is a uniquely intricate mediation between the individual and the community, the past and the present. This will be further illustrated by a discussion of Magda Szabó’s novel Katalin Street (1969); a work that explores the complex social dynamics that emerge when an intimate community is traumatized during World War II by the murder of one of their own and the subsequent loss of their shared utopia. As a result, those who survive, as a coping mechanism for as well as symptom of their trauma, continue to reenact their idealized past as if the catastrophic event never occurred. As such, Szabó foregrounds how Boym’s nostalgic performance and Caruth’s acting out are often fundamentally interwoven in the creation of a never-ending, paradoxical cycle of remembering through forgetting and forgetting through remembrance. Moreover, by emphasizing the layers of witnessing within the text, Szabó underlines the importance of acknowledging this nostalgic reenactment of the past as a form of testimony in its own right, one that calls for new ways of listening to trauma.

Does Trauma Have a Race?

Abstract The task of theorizing and “curing” psychological trauma posed an unprecedented challenge to Western medicine during World War I. In this article, I analyze linguistic and thematic patterns across influential French medical journal publications (1914–1919) to elucidate the dominant medical model of psychological trauma in white men. My approach highlights the centrality of la volonté (“willpower”), historically a critical aspect of Western masculinity, to experts’ conceptualization of trauma itself. I expand this analysis to consider key differences between the model of trauma in white men and the so-called “facsimiles of pathology” in North African soldiers. This comparative analysis illuminates a larger cultural schema of the healthy (white, masculine) self as discrete, sovereign, impermeable, and “justified” in its occupation of colonial spaces.

Ecologies of violence: Cultural memory (studies) and the genocide–ecocide nexus

Ecocide and large-scale ecological degradation raise critical questions regarding guilt, justice, and responsibility. The complexity and scale of ecological violence present a singular challenge for memory studies, especially when it comes to understanding how we are implicated in this violence. Often, the way ecological violence is framed as violence relies on repertoires, forms and conventions for representing and commemorating genocides and other acts of large-scale violence against humans. Moreover, cultural forms are able to reveal the historical, structural and discursive links between crimes against humanity and crimes against nature. To explore the implications of these ‘ecologies of violence’ for memory studies, this essay brings together two major strands in the field that have so far not intersected in a substantial way: the turn towards the figure of the perpetrator and to questions of guilt, complicity/implication on the one hand, and on the other, the turn towards the environment and the non-human. The increased interest in the question of perpetration and complicity has gone hand in hand with a critical interrogation of the perpetrator–victim–bystander triad and a shift towards more relational and dynamic conceptions of violence. The environmental turn in memory studies is beginning to rethink memory in terms of more-than-human temporalities or scales, as well as developing new conceptualizations of trauma and victimhood. The aim of this essay is twofold: first, it will briefly sketch each of these developments, bringing out possible points of convergence and divergence. Second, it will explore the potential for memory studies in bringing these two strands together, taking the re-emergence of tribunal theatre as a key example of the cultural imaginary of the genocide–ecocide nexus.

Teach Like a Black Woman: A Trauma-Informed Black Feminist Praxis

When considering the traumatic, racialized educational landscape of the U.S., we turn our attention to the revolutionary consciousness that Black feminism provides in our conceptualization of trauma, suffering, and healing. Ultimately, we maintain that Black women educators (BWEs) enacting Black feminist pedagogies in their classrooms are uniquely positioned to advance our collective discourses, practices, and research on trauma and healing. Utilizing qualitative inquiry, we examine interviews from BWEs through the lenses of Black feminism and our holistic trauma framework. Findings reveal BWEs’ tools—love lessons and proactive, interactive, and reactive healing pedagogies. We conclude with recommendations for urban teacher education programs.

Open Trial of Trauma-Focused Psychodynamic Psychotherapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among LGBTQ Individuals.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals report higher rates of exposure to traumatic events and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) compared with heterosexual and cisgender individuals. No treatment outcomes research has focused on PTSD in the LGBTQ population. Trauma-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy (TFPP) is a brief, manualized, attachment- and affect-focused psychotherapy for PTSD. TFPP explicitly incorporates broad identity-related and societal factors into its conceptualization of trauma and its consequences, which may be especially helpful for LGBTQ patients with minority stress who seek affirmative care. Fourteen LGBTQ patients with PTSD, assessed with the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5), received 24 sessions of twice-weekly (12 weeks) TFPP via teletherapy provided by supervised early-career therapists inexperienced in the modality. Sessions were videotaped to monitor therapists' treatment adherence. Patients were assessed at baseline, week 5, termination (week 12), and 3 months posttreatment for PTSD symptoms (assessed with the CAPS-5) and secondary outcomes. TFPP was well tolerated by patients, with 12 (86%) completing the intervention. CAPS-5-measured PTSD symptoms, including dissociation, significantly improved during treatment (mean decrease=-21.8, d=-1.98), and treatment gains were maintained at follow-up. Most patients experienced PTSD clinical response (N=10, 71%) or diagnostic remission (N=7, 50%). Patients generally experienced significant, concomitant improvements in complex PTSD symptoms, general anxiety, depression, and psychosocial functioning. Adherence to the intervention among therapists was high, with 93% of rated sessions meeting adherence standards. TFPP shows promise in the treatment of PTSD among sexual and gender minority patients seeking LGBTQ-affirmative PTSD care.

Integrating Spirituality and Religious Beliefs in a Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for PTSD with Latinx Unaccompanied Immigrant Children

Purpose: Unaccompanied immigrant children (UIC) experience significant mental health concerns, particularly posttraumatic stress. This is a vulnerable population, yet little systematic research has examined the effectiveness of evidence-based models such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to meet their needs. Integrating religious beliefs and spirituality into therapy could elucidate better understandings of traumatic stress, and posttraumatic cognitions when working with UIC with strong faith traditions/beliefs. Methods: We report on modifications made to a pre-existing treatment, consisting of integrating religious and spiritual themes, to engage and work with UIC participants in a pilot study of Mindfulness-Based CBT. Thematic analysis of therapy notes evaluated the implementation process for integrating religious and spiritual themes. Three composite vignettes illustrate how religiosity and spirituality were salient for UIC participants in this pilot study, and how these were integrated into therapy to address posttraumatic cognitions and symptoms. We assessed changes in PTSD symptom severity and posttraumatic cognitions for UIC and in comparison, to non-UIC participants using the Child PTSD Symptom Scale and the Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory. Results: Religiosity and spirituality were important for coping and conceptualizations of trauma, served as facilitators for engaging UIC in therapy, and related to improving posttraumatic cognitions and symptoms. Conclusion: Religious identity and spirituality can be important for meaning making, trauma cognitions and symptoms, and can be important to explore in therapy with unaccompanied immigrant children and adolescents. Clinical Trial Registration: Not applicable.

Trauma and Recovery: A Psychoanalytic Study of Gharbi Mustafa's When Mountains Weep

This study investigates traumatic experiences of the main character in Gharbi M. Mustafa’s novel When Mountains Weep, based on Judith Herman’s conceptualization of trauma in her book Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. Being on the road, Kurds are either internally displaced, migrating, or oppressed and assimilated politically. The prevention of language, confiscation of land, forced assimilation, and constant armed conflicts have made Kurds develop a traumatic cognitive and emotional response to the meaning of life, anguish, integration, and survival. Therefore, the paper studies the traumatic consequences on the main characters’ psyches, in particular Hamko, based on three symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder which are hyperarousal, intrusion, and constriction. Threatened by tumultuous circumstances and trapped on mountain peaks, the paper argues that generations of Kurds have lost sense of childhood and innocence growing up either as refugees or living in their own landlocked mountains.

Addressing Trauma in Adaptive Physical Activity: A Call to Reflection and Action.

Trauma is pervasive, embodied, and can be perpetrated or perpetuated by researchers, educators, and practitioners, including those within adaptive physical activity (APA). In this article, we highlight the need to address trauma within APA as a matter of access and justice. We share various conceptualizations of trauma from psychiatric, embodied, anti-pathologizing, and sociopolitical perspectives. Trauma-informed practice is introduced as a framework for creating safer, more inclusive programs and services, so we can recognize the impacts of trauma and affirm those who experience it. As the first step to a multistep trauma-informed process, our aim is to raise awareness of trauma and introduce resources for enacting trauma-informed practice. We also pose difficult questions about how we, as "helping" practitioners, researchers, and educators may be perpetuating or perpetrating harm and trauma, in particular sanism, within our profession. Ultimately, we invite readers to join us in reflection and action toward anti-pathologizing trauma-informed APA.

The "3 Es" of trauma-informed care in a federally qualified health center: Traumatic Event- and Experience-related predictors of physical and mental health Effects among female patients.

Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) are a fast-growing source of healthcare for women with intersectional identities, or those most frequently exposed to and negatively impacted by interpersonal trauma. According to the "3 E" conceptualization of trauma, certain Event- and Experience-related characteristics of a trauma predict victims' physical and mental health Effects. The "3 Es" have yet to be studied in female FQHC patients. The current study examined the prevalence of interpersonal trauma and interrelationships among traumatic Event-related factors (e.g., cumulative trauma by victim-perpetrator relationship), Experience-related factors (e.g., betrayal, resilience), and Effects (e.g., somatic symptoms, posttraumatic stress (PTS), anxiety/depression, mistrust, reduced sense of safety) among 138 predominantly Black (89.1%) women receiving care at an FQHC in the southeastern U.S. Roughly 65% of participants (n = 86) endorsed exposure to at least one type of interpersonal trauma. More cumulative trauma was significantly correlated with more somatic, PTS, and anxious/depressive symptoms,and a reduced sense of safety. Experiences of betrayal and/or resilience were better predictors of PTS and anxious/depressive symptoms and lack of safety than Event-related factors. Findings support the need for the implementation of trauma-informed care within community-based health centers. Healthcare providers should consider women's subjective experience of trauma when screening for exposure and providing trauma-sensitive care.

Healing Is Rhizomatic: A Conceptual Framework and Tool

This paper offers a conceptual framework and a set of tools that use rhizomes as a metaphor for healing in the context of oppressive violence. Existing conceptualizations of trauma, trauma recovery, and healing offer important tools for framing and addressing the impacts of oppression on individuals and groups. These exist in a fractured practice ground where practitioners are socialized into divisions such as “micro” vs. “macro” practice and “self-care” vs. “the work.” The Healing is Rhizomatic conceptual framework identifies five nodes (body, felt sense, relationships, place, story) and three dimensions of healing-oriented engagement (recognition, readying the ground, (re)generation) that exist across these approaches. Adaptable to multiple levels of analysis, the conceptual framework focuses on fracture, blockage, and connection as core experiences. These experiences occur in, through, and between the nodes and dimensions. This paper explores use of the conceptual framework and tools for applying it as a mechanism for assessment and reflection about internalized and operational definitions and approaches to healing. Thereby, the framework and tools offer a view of a common practice ground for practitioners engaged in healing work in the context of oppressive violence and is intended to support deeper awareness, collaboration, and coordination of approaches.

Optimizing a critical juncture: Trauma, neoliberal education and children’s agency

Trauma sensitive approaches are being adopted in schools across the U.S. While responding to children’s trauma is imperative, this analysis points to significant limitations posed by individual pathology-focused science and neoliberal influences, including an outline of fundamental contradictions. This is followed by a conceptualization of trauma which illustrates alignment with and the necessity of critical pedagogy as a means for developing critical knowledge and world views that are resistant to domination and may counter the effects of trauma.

Trauma societies and their characteristics: Between evolution and revolution

Abstract The development of civilization at the present stage is faced with a phenomenon that is still poorly studied and lítde known, which we call the trauma of’ society. The fact is that significant, special and specific events are taking place in the world that caunot be defined and qualified in the old terms of evolution and revolution, which describe and reflect the changes that are taking place. Currently, there are 53 states that, according to the World Bank, that have been or are ina state of chaotic, unbalanced and turbulent development for a long period. This state allows us to state that along with the main recognized development paths -revolution and evolution - ia the modern worldthere ls such a specific phenomenonas trauma society. Ítis showa how the concept oftrauma acquired a social sound, and how itwas interpreted in the scientific literature, 20d to what extent was reflected ia political vocabulary. The author refers as trauma societies to countries tbat have stagnated for along time io their development orare ioa state of recession andlose their previously achieved milestones. The article reveals the essential characteristics of a trauma society, the reasons for its occurrence, and the consequences of its functioning. Particular attention is paid to Russia, which, according to the author, can be described as trauma aud injured society, since in its development, having rejected the socialist past, it did not reach the Achievements from which it began its way in 1991. At the same time, transformations carried out for more than a quarter of a century forra a raosaic in which it is difficult/impossible to distinguish between evolutionary and revolutionarv treads. In this regard, an analysis of the obstacies that are not overcome for the iniplementationofa truly democratic, eficiently functioning society is given.

The cultural context of trauma recovery: Considering the posttraumatic stress disorder practice guideline and intersectionality.

The American Psychological Association's (2017) Clinical Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Adults endorsed by the American Psychological Association notes that attention to cultural context is a required component of trauma-informed mental health care provision. Despite the inclusion of this statement, the Treatment of PTSD Guideline does not give adequate attention to culture in the defining of trauma, review of the trauma literature, the criteria adopted for evaluation of PTSD treatments, and, resultantly, the determination of treatment recommendations. Culture plays a significant role in the vulnerability to, experience of, and recovery from mental health sources of distress, including interpersonal trauma (Bryant-Davis, 2005). Approaches to trauma-focused psychotherapy that are ethically sound call for a prioritizing of cultural competence (awareness, knowledge, and skills), as well as cultural humility (Harvey & Tammala-Nara, 2007). Trauma survivors, however, hold multiple identities simultaneously that influence their conceptualizations of trauma, therapy, and the recovery process (Brown, 2008). Intersectionality refers to the way in which a multiply marginalized person experiences cultural identity and oppression that is qualitatively different than the experience of trauma survivors from dominant cultural groups (Crenshaw, 2005). The realities of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism, as well as their influence on the trauma recovery process, are examined, while noting the minimal attention that has been given to additional forms of oppression such as religious intolerance and able-bodyism. This critical review of the literature will examine the theoretical and empirical literature, which has examined the framework and strategies that have been cultivated in service to trauma survivors who have been traditionally underserved. Attention will be given in particular to benefits, limitations, and critiques of evidence-based interventions, as well as benefits, limitations, and future research needs of both culturally modified interventions and culturally emergent trauma interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Trauma theory and postcolonial literary studies

The plurality and growing number of responses to cultural trauma theory in postcolonial criticism demonstrate the ongoing appeal of trauma theory despite the fact that it is also increasingly critiqued as inadequate to the research agenda of postcolonial studies. In the dialogue between trauma theory and postcolonial literary studies the central question remains whether trauma theory can be effectively “postcolonialized” in the sense of being usefully conjoined with postcolonial theory. This article presents a detailed account of the core concepts and tenets of cultural trauma theory in order to contribute to a clearer understanding of the issues currently at stake in this developing relationship between trauma theory and postcolonial literary studies. It engages with fundamental issues, such as those deriving from trauma theory’s foundation in Freudian psychoanalysis; its Eurocentric orientation; its inherent contradictions, such as its deconstructionist aesthetics of aporia vs notions of therapeutic and recuperative narrativization; and its tendency to blur lines of distinction and to affirm stasis and melancholia as the empathic, responsible reception of trauma narratives. This article argues for a more precise, as well as more comprehensive, conceptualization of trauma and formulates possible directions in which to expand trauma’s conceptual framework, in order to respond more adequately to postcolonial ways of understanding history, memory and trauma.

Apartheid Haunts: Postcolonial Trauma in Lisa Fugard’s Skinner’s Drift

When post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980, it marked breakthrough for those who believed that the condition played defining role in shaping contemporary culture. Since this date, interest in the traumatic, described by Sigmund Freud as any excitations from outside which are powerful enough to break the [mind's] protective shield (607), has grown rapidly. Trauma has been called symptom of the age (Miller and Tougaw 1), and the twentieth century has been marked as an era of historical trauma, incorporating occasions for communal mourning too numerous to chronicle (Henke xi). Recognized variously as phenomenon of delayed response; an assault on the categories of identity; a disorder of memory (Leys 2); and spiritual, psychic, or mental injury (Gilmore 25), this new conceptualization of trauma has struck chord within an unsettled society that has experienced countless horrors and tragedies and which finds itself constantly haunted-through the immediate, arresting insistence of the media-by the past. Trauma studies' growth can be attributed to its exposure of the significant long-term effects of traumatic experience on individuals. In highlighting the suffering of various groups of marginalized peoples (for example, oppressed women, war veterans, victims of genocide, the sexually or physically abused, and the terminally ill), trauma studies draws attention to those who are often forgotten. It highlights the importance of addressing the pain of wounds to the psyche in order for individuals and collective groups to recover. This represents natural progression within critical studies, which, since the 1970s, has increasingly highlighted the experiences of minority groups. However, trauma studies have to date been largely pre-occupied with Western experiences of (and Western perspectives on) trauma. This is mainly the

Beyond PTSD: Socio-economic Bereavement in Tigray, Ethiopia

By drawing upon data collected through in-depth interviews with 20 victims of the Ethio-Eritrean war, this paper addresses how psychosocial consequences of political war are expressed and conceptualized by people from Tigray, Ethiopia. War events were typically described in terms of their negative impacts on the household's means for income generation, and psychosocial complaints centred on aspects of impaired post-war economy rather than on politically violent experiences. The most reported complaints were (a) household erosion complaints, (b) social marginalization complaints and (c) education abortion complaints. Post-war psychosocial health problems were perceived as consequences of these aspects of impaired household economy, and were described in terms of their negative impacts on future income generation. Informants’ expressions of distress were found to be highly informed by the socio-cultural and socio-economic structures of the Tigrayan society. Being the only study of its kind from this context, the study provides a unique illustration of the limitations of western trauma measures and calls for a context-based conceptualization of trauma.

Representations of Trauma in Clinical Psychology and Fiction

ABSTRCT Representations of trauma in fiction offer significant insight regarding consciousness and psychopathology that can enhance available approaches in clinical psychology. This article considers elements of consonance and dissonance in psychological and literary approaches to trauma in the areas of individual experience, emotions, dissociation, communication, meaning, and healing and recovery. Some of the ways psychological and fictional approaches converge include examining the impact of disclosing traumatic events, common post-traumatic reactions, processes of dissociation, and pathways to recovery. The fields differ, though, in their attention to individual experience, range of emotional responses to traumatic events, description of cultural and historical context, use of language and classification, and approaches to the meaning of trauma. The novels under discussion situate trauma in specific social and historical contexts that allow readers to grasp the complex interplay between characters' individual experiences and environments, as well as the diverse phenomenology of traumatic responses and defenses. Fiction enhances clinical conceptualizations of traumatic emotion and memory by providing unique access into psychological states, including the effects of trauma on the individual's sense of self and relation to the world. Portrayals of dissociation in fiction and clinical psychology each depict the difficulty of integrating traumatic experience into memory and identity, but use different forms of expression to explore dissociative phenomena. Fictional representations also facilitate cultural understanding of the meaning of trauma and offer additional pathways to recovery. Integrating insights from these fields involves attending to the different goals of each discipline. Clinical psychology seeks to identify and treat symptoms, whereas fiction communicates the quality of human experiences and elicits emotion from readers. Thus fictional depictions have the potential to illuminate psychological conceptualizations of trauma.