Trauma Theory Research Articles

Chronicity of Violence Foretold: Toward an Integrated Theory of Intimate Partner Violence.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a worldwide social problem. The current study explores underlining mechanisms of phenomenon by tying together intergenerational transmission theory, socialization theory, and trauma theory. It learns from men how the father figure shaped by their childhood experiences has contributed to their violence, how the father's socialization to manhood has affected their intimate relations, and how they understand the effect of being exposed to the father's violence on their own intimate relationships and violence. Interviews with 25 Israeli men were analyzed thematically in the phenomenological approach. Thematic analysis revealed five themes describing men's experiences of their father's aggression and detachment; men's experience of their intimate relations; men's image of women; men's fear of being infected or conquered by their partners' emotionality; and an overarching theme describing the understanding that men and women are destined to live in an intractable conflict that only violence can end. The interviewees explained that when hardened detached men raised by violent fathers interact with an emotional woman, they experience painful feelings and are threatened by her emotionality; consequently, they will use violence against that threat to stop their pain. The findings support a multidimensional integrative perspective of IPV and call for a theoretical synthesis of these men's models of violence. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

The gendered trauma trajectories of mothers entering prison

Research has shown that many women involved in the criminal justice system have prior experiences of trauma and victimisation. This paper, based on qualitative narrative research with mothers, identifies the specific gendered trauma trajectories of mothers with experience of custody in England. This includes experiences of domestic abuse, removal of children and issues with perinatal mental health. In many instances, these issues are closely interrelated adding further layers of cumulative impact to the trauma experienced. Drawing on trauma theory and pathways theory, these experiences are then analysed and suggestions for mitigating the impact of this trauma are proposed.

A Journey to Healing Pain: Trauma Writing of Charlie Gordon in Flowers for Algernon

Flowers for Algernon, first published in 1959, is a novel written by the American writer Daniel Keyes. It tells the story of Charlie Gordon’s journey from having an intellectual disability to gaining extraordinary intelligence, as well as his regression when one experimental procedure starts to goes wrong. “Trauma” is a marked theme in the work, which plays a vital role in portraying characters and developing plots. In the light of trauma theory, this essay puts a focus on the relationship between trauma and the individual, and author of this paper argues that family and society are two major roots in imposing misery upon the protagonist. With the interference of technology, trauma is rediscovered and represented by his confusion, maladjustment, and rage. Ultimately, he treats it through finding himself, building connections with others, and doing contributions to the society. It is concluded that based on writing the trauma of the intelligently disabled, Keyes vividly communicates his concerns on then further revealing the theme of science and technology, goodness, and wisdom.

Remembering the Disremembered

Abstract This article reads Abubakar Ibrahim’s short story “The Book of Remembered Things” as an anti-jihadist narrative that meditates on the traumatic effects of violent jihadism on the postcolonial Muslim domestic space and a counternarrative to the dominant body of Western fictional responses to the 9/11 terror attacks. Situated at the intersection of Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?” and postcolonial trauma theory, the article argues that Ibrahim mourns and remembers the traumas of the disremembered postcolonial subaltern African Muslim woman elided in the dominant discourses on the WoT and also subtly critiques fundamentalists ideologies like Boko Haram. Ibrahim shows that Jihadists’ quest for an Islamic theocracy or caliphate is doomed to fail because it revolves around a sacrificial structure wherein the Muslin woman is sacrificed on the altar of ideological incoherence. By focusing on the nexus between WoT and gendered trauma, the article explores how Ibrahim reclaims the subaltern woman’s voice in the wake of violent jihadism.

The Impact of Holistic Justice on the Long‐Term Experiences and Wellbeing of Mass Human Rights Violation Survivors: Ethnographic and Interview Evidence From Kosova, Northern Ireland and Albania

ABSTRACTResearch highlights the long‐term collective effects of mass human rights violations (MHRVs) on survivors’ wellbeing. This multi‐method, multi‐context paper combines the social identity approach (SIA), transitional and social justice theories and human rights‐conceptualised wellbeing to propose a human rights understanding of trauma responses and experiences in the context of MHRVs. In Study 1, ethnographic research in four locations in Kosova, 5 years post war indicates that lack of perceived conflict‐related and social justice is experienced as a key contributor to survivors’ individual and collective wellbeing. In Study 2, 61 semi‐structured interviews with MHRVs survivors from post‐war Kosova, post‐conflict Northern Ireland and post‐dictatorship Albania two to three decades post conflict also show that such justice experiences inform wellbeing. These studies illustrate the importance of expanding the SIA to health and trauma theories by taking account of a human rights‐conceptualised wellbeing as well as adopting a holistic analysis of justice perception.

Exploring the nexus between post-traumatic stress disorder and patriarchy: a gender-based variation

Respected Editor, Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychological disorder resulting from witnessing or experiencing trauma, aggravated by repeated exposure to stress and anxiety. We aim to highlight the underrepresentation of PTSD in a third-world country, its gender-specific variations, and its disproportionate prevalence in women in a male-dominated society. According to recent studies, gender-based differences in PTSD are reported as 2:1, favouring women. Statistics reveal that men face more traumatic incidents, ranging from violence, bloodshed, and natural disasters.1. Yet women are more susceptible to PTSD because men, encountering such occurrences regularly, perceive it as a norm and find it easier to cope with it than their female counterparts, who happen to have a more significant post-trauma recovery time, which may be a result of fluctuating gonadal hormone levels in young females, as hypothesized by recent studies.2 Furthermore, Pimlott-Kubiak’s theory of trauma and PTSD (2003) suggests that patriarchy exacerbates mental health disorders in women as a vast majority of victims of abuse happen to have their spouses as assailants, categorizing as intimate partner violence.3 Being considered a taboo, women who have experienced assault are silenced due to stigmatization. They become a target of victim shaming and are discouraged from discussing the matter. With no therapy, self-blame ensues, along with a wide spectrum of symptoms of PTSD, like borderline personality disorder, flashbacks, eating disorders, disassociation, and depression, forcing the ‘labelled’ women to sever all positive connections and distance themselves from their loved ones due to fear of being judged.4 Complex Chronic PTSD may result from witnessing or experiencing assault since childhood in an abusive household from an aggressive male, which can trigger mental health issues when dealing with life's challenges as adults.5 Failing to find any discussion on this topic in medical research databases including PubMed and PakMediNet, solidifies our point that lack of awareness and research about the adverse effects of patriarchy on the mental health of women living in a developing country leads to a society where negligence prevails, fueling a vicious cycle of psychological disorders, passed on from generation to generation. Being a disorder that haunts victims for life, PTSD should be tackled with awareness, therapies, and emotional support to ensure a healthy life for all women. More research should be conducted to highlight this issue so that people can talk about such concerns more comfortably and the harm caused by PTSD in Pakistani society can be minimized.

“Can Corpses Undie?” Traces of Rothberg’s Trauma Model in Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé’s Ace of Spades

Interdisciplinary studies in memory have become more relevant since the turn of the twentieth century with scholars giving their divergent views. That way, personal and collective memories have been explored vis-à-vis communal identities. How tragic/traumatic events affect personal and collective memories remains the concern of trauma theory which has critically investigated both the personal and intergenerational traumas of victims of injustice. One major contribution of Michael Rothberg to collective memory is his advancement of solidarity between group victims of diverse cultures, nationalities, races, and identities in order to create a more peaceful world to live in. This paper purports that Rothberg’s multidirectional memory and theory of implication are useful theoretical tools for analysing Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé’s Young Adult novel, Ace of Spades (2021). The paper, therefore, indicates how diverse sites of trauma in the author’s world synergise with those of the protagonists. Also, the paper notably identifies some white characters in Ace of Spades as implicated subjects of racism and white supremacy. On the whole, the premise of this paper is that the new media can serve as a convenient site of thoughtful convergence for different victim groups to devise a means of dismantling long-existing regimes of oppression and injustice.

Narrative Space and the Figure of the Refugee in the Early Life Writing of Ocean Vuong

ABSTRACT This paper will read for the representation of space in the Vietnamese American author Ocean Vuong’s narrative essay “The Weight of Our Living: On Hope, Fire Escapes, and Visible Desperation”. The paper places Vuong’s text into conversation with theorists of narrative and architectural spaces – Yi-Fu Tuan, Umberto Eco, and Mikhail Bakhtin, among others – and draws on critical refugee studies to explore the representation of spaces and places in their relationship to Vuong’s account of refugee experience and trauma. In the essay’s manipulations of narrative space, meditations on architectural space, and engagements with theories of trauma, a spatial understanding of trauma emerges and comes to bear on first wave literary trauma theory, which the essay builds on and departs from with the suggestion that architectural space functions semiotically and is a medium of language by which topics socially and psychologically repressed can be “spoken” despite social taboos and prohibitions. Working against public discourse which reduces refugees to victims of trauma (in their country of origin) and beneficiaries of social uplift (in their resettlement country), Vuong critiques the discursive framing of the refugee as needful ward and perpetual other and works toward a means of speaking about personal experience that speaks back to dominant narratives about refugees.

Moving beyond vulnerability and focusing on resilience: An intersectional posttraumatic growth model for LGBTQ+ people of color.

In the context of the legacy of deficit-focused research and application of theoretical models in research on minoritized groups that are underrepresented in the literature, we explored the strengths-based literature among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) people of color to develop a more inclusive and relevant understanding of how posttraumatic growth (PTG) occurs in this population. Our intersectional PTG model is tailored to the experiences of LGBTQ+ people of color that builds upon previous models of PTG, intersectionality theory, and empirical findings of trauma and PTG among LGBTQ+ people of color. Our intersectional PTG model incorporates the unique intrapersonal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural factors that are unique to this population and contribute to PTG. We challenge the limited scope of Criterion A traumatic events and emphasize empirical findings that support that LGBTQ+ people of color often experience posttraumatic stress after oppression and discrimination. Our model also recognizes the impact of intersecting risk factors, such as gendered racism, that may occur on various levels. Our model acknowledges that LGBTQ+ people of color have often demonstrated PTG in the face of adversity. Intrapersonal factors such as cognitive flexibility, interpersonal factors such as social support, and institutional and cultural factors such as identity-related activism are identified as key contributors to resilience. We discuss practice implications, highlighting that clinicians should recognize limitations of traditional trauma frameworks and adopt culturally sensitive approaches when working with LGBTQ+ people of color. Overall, our model provides a foundation for strengths-based interventions and research, emphasizing resiliency and potential for PTG in this population.

Trauma Healing through Psalms 136–139: a Trauma-Informed Canon-Critical Framework

Abstract This article draws together insights from trauma theory and the conversation in Psalms scholarship known as “Psalmenexegese und Psalterexegese” or as the question of “shape and shaping” to propose a reading of Pss 136–139 as a pathway to trauma healing. This sequence of psalms moves participants toward healing by preparing them for the work of trauma healing through a mantra-like focus (Ps 136), unleashing the full range of human stress-responses to trauma (Ps 137), directly answering each of these stress-responses (Ps 138), and then—in a dramatic resolution—characterizing God as intimately concerned with human biology and life while continuing to acknowledge ongoing experiences of pain and injustice (Ps 139). The article illustrates the proposed framework for trauma healing with examples from pastoral work with asylum-seekers.

The Influence of Colonial Trauma on the Masculine Characteristics of Georgian Identity

The present paper explores two Georgian literary texts written at the beginning of the twentieth century, at the early stage of Sovietization: Sanavardo by Demna Shengelaia, and Jaqo’s Dispossessed by Mikheil Javakhishvili. I aim to explore the traumatic effects of colonization on Georgian national consciousness and analyze its influence on the masculine characteristics of the Georgian identity. The issue of national self-identification has been raised, with all its sharpness, at every stage of fundamental historical and political changes in Georgia. The permanency of the issue is an indication of the fact that the national self-identification process has been associated with certain historical facts and events that have not been fully realized and existed as not overcome trauma, by society. Such an event is the Russian occupation of Georgia at the end of the nineteenth century. Based on trauma theory, the research shows that in both novels, the writers describe the lives of the main characters who lost their abilities and were unable to make purposeful use of their potential. Therefore, their political and social functions were represented by disregarding reality and distancing themselves from the present. The reasons for the negation of the present refer to the so-called existential fear of reality, which has caused a weakening or disappearance of masculine characteristics of identity such as power, assertiveness, desire to own and control, and individual initiative.

If the Body Keeps the Score, What Happens When You Bring the Body to Work? Exploring the Health Effects of Trauma on Human Capital

Data reveal that the physical effects of trauma exposure increasingly surface in business, social, and other settings. Exposure to trauma at any point in life can cause employee health concerns, yet many firms do not acknowledge or address this. Herein, we combine trauma theory with human capital theory to explain how manifestations of trauma exposure— hyperarousal, intrusion, and constriction—impact employee health and performance. This article outlines how each manifestation affects human capital deployment, and thus employee performance. It further demonstrates how these human capital deployment issues have individual- and unit-level performance implications. This article offers a theory linking health effects of trauma to performance outcomes at work. It suggests how managerial awareness of trauma manifestations is a necessary step toward workplaces becoming supportive or healing. Our model offers new explanations related to why some individuals behave as they do at work and connects trauma to employee behavior and value creation.

Trauma Theory and Abuse, Neglect and Violence Across the Life Course.

A literature review of recent prevalence and prospective studies on interpersonal violence (IPV) identifies a link among child abuse, intimate partner violence, and elder abuse that had not emerged from life-stage-specific studies on abuse, neglect, and violence against older persons. In line with a developmental understanding of IPV from a life course perspective, early life trauma is emerging as an explanatory theory of IPV across the life course. This paradigm shift in the field of elder abuse challenges more traditional explanations of IPV in old age, such as ageism, but opens up new opportunities for interventions leading to prevention and treatment of abuse, neglect, and violence against older adults. Prevalence studies that include older subjects and questions about violence experienced as children and younger adults consistently identify child abuse as a risk factor for IPV experienced in old age. Similarly, prospective studies on IPV that follow subjects from childhood to old age identify lifetime patterns of abuse. Qualitative studies of IPV in old age that include retrospective data suggest a link as well. IPV perpetrated against children and adults of all ages by persons in positions of trust can lead to trauma that has adverse lifelong behavioral and relational implications. This provides a link between trauma theory and violence against older people. Until recently, abuse, neglect, and violence were conceptualized differently based on the life stage of the victim. While historically the definitions for partner and non-partner violence diverged based on the life stage of victims, more recently this has begun to converge. Understanding violence from a life course and trauma-informed perspective better identifies risk factors and interventions for IPV against older adults. Intersectionality of age and gender variables demonstrate differences and similarities among populations studied.

Influence of Historical Events on American Literature of the 21st Century

Purpose: The aim of the study was to assess the influence of historical events on American literature of the 21st century. Materials and Methods: This study adopted a desk methodology. A desk study research design is commonly known as secondary data collection. This is basically collecting data from existing resources preferably because of its low cost advantage as compared to a field research. Our current study looked into already published studies and reports as the data was easily accessed through online journals and libraries. Findings: The terrorist attacks marked a significant turning point, inspiring a wave of literature that grapples with themes of loss, trauma, and the complexities of patriotism. This era saw the rise of novels, memoirs, and poems that explore the personal and collective impact of the event, such as Don DeLillo's "Falling Man" and Jonathan Safran Foer's "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close." Additionally, the economic downturn of 2008 influenced a body of work that critiques capitalism and explores themes of financial instability and inequality, exemplified by novels like John Lanchester's "Capital" and Jess Walter's "The Financial Lives of the Poets." The rise of social movements, such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, has significantly shaped contemporary American literature, prompting a surge in works addressing racial injustice, gender equality, and social activism. Authors like Ta-Nehisi Coates with "Between the World and Me" and Angie Thomas with "The Hate U Give" provide powerful narratives that reflect the ongoing struggle for civil rights and social justice. Implications to Theory, Practice and Policy: Historical materialism, trauma theory and cultural theory may be used to anchor future studies on assessing the influence of historical events on American literature of the 21st century. Encouraging the inclusion of diverse voices and perspectives in literary production and academic studies is essential. Government and private institutions should provide funding and grants specifically aimed at supporting literary works that address significant historical events.

“They will not erase the blood, of those who fell here”: a multimodal analysis of the music video as a site of (post)memory and resistance against negationism in post-dictatorial Chile

ABSTRACT This paper explores how a contemporary music video can pass down memories and trauma in post-dictatorial Chile. Focusing on a video by the Chilean band Illapu, it uses theories of collective trauma and (post)memory to show how the video represents past traumas and challenges dominant narratives and current negationist discourses. The study finds that the video uses audio-visual and (inter)textual elements to make viewers reflect on the past, underlining its ability to counter attempts to deny or distort history. This contributes to understanding how music videos can serve as sites of “voiced postmemories” and act as powerful tools in the collective processing of traumatic events, promoting truth, justice, and reconciliation in post-dictatorial Chile.

Intergenerational trauma and complex implication in Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King (2019)

ABSTRACT In the last three decades, numerous literary works have been published by women writers with origins in Italy’s former colonies in the Horn of Africa. These narratives have helped to create a belated form of postcolonial consciousness in Italy. Ethiopian American writer Maaza Mengiste adds to this body of work with her Booker longlisted novel, The Shadow King, which depicts the Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935–41). This article analyses her text through the lens of intergenerational trauma theory. It applies Michael Rothberg’s notion of “complex implication”, referring to how an inheritance of victimhood may coexist with a position of implication, and Mihaela Mihai’s concept of “impure resistance”, which allows space for the ambivalence that may be implicit in resistance. It thus explores Mengiste’s portrayal of the enduring – and often unconscious – legacy of past trauma on the present and examines how subject positions such as “victim” and “perpetrator” fluctuate over generations.

Facing the (Political) Elephant in the Room: On the Depoliticisation and Re-Politicisation of Refugee Trauma Amongst Therapists in Germany

AbstractPTSD is commonly diagnosed in refugees, and since 2015 refugee mental health programmes in Germany have increased (BPtK in Bericht zur Mentalen Gesundheit Geflüchteter, 2019). Despite the vast literature on refugee trauma (Silove et al. in World Psychiatry, 16(2), 130–139, 2017), there has been little engagement with the role of therapists therein. This article addresses this lacuna by drawing on 23 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2020 and 2021 with therapists in psychosocial centres for refugees in 14 German federal states. From these interviews, it emerged that therapists occupy an ambivalent position which is characterised by a simultaneous depoliticization and repoliticization of refugee trauma. Believing that it is “so bad it is impossible to do nothing”, therapists started to engage in public political resistance, through therapeutic interactions and lobbying for change. Most therapists sought to engage in political action through a prism of detached professional neutrality. This comprises a particular conundrum since the premise of neutrality directly contravenes the practice of political action as such but also reverts to a mode of individualised medicalisation that cannot fully recognise the political nature of their client’s trauma. We propose to solve this tension through a novel German critical theoretical understanding of trauma as a form of status subordination, wherein the taken for granted presupposition of intersubjective equality is so violently breeched it results in existential disorientation and speechlessness (Matthies-Boon in Breaking intersubjectivity: A critical theory of counter-revolutionary trauma in Egypt, Rowman and Littlefield, 2022). Casting trauma in such intersubjective socio-normative terms means that therapists have the analytical tools to fully embrace their political aspirations whilst simultaneously improving the efficacy of their therapeutic interventions on an individual level.

“It Will Always Feel Worse Because it Comes with That Added ‘Betrayal’”: Intersectionality Praxis and Black Young Women Survivors’ Perspectives on Cultural Betrayal Trauma Theory

ABSTRACT Because of interlocking oppressions of racism and sexism (e.g. intersectionality), Black women’s experiences of high rates of sexual violence are often ignored. A critical Black feminist framework, cultural betrayal trauma theory (CBTT) examines within-group violence in the Black community, which has compounding harm due to inequality. Though quantitative research has found support for CBTT, Black young women survivors’ perspectives have not been examined. Therefore, the purpose of the current exploratory study was to engage in intersectionality praxis to qualitatively examine Black young women survivors’ perspectives on CBTT through structured thematic analysis and coding based on theory. Respondents (N = 37; 18–30 years), provided their thoughts on CBTT following participating in a quantitative study. With most survivors in agreement that cultural betrayal in trauma is harmful, a key theme was community orientation in understanding both the harm and healing of cultural betrayal trauma. Black young women survivors’ resonance with CBTT, as well as their recommendations for community-level solidarity and healing have important implications.

Success Story or Traumatic Experience? An Attempt to Integrate Trauma Theory with Oral History Research for the Interpretation of First-Person Stories

This article focuses on the following issues: (1) how a narrator describes life under political repression in a retrospective first-person story; (2) the extent to which such a story can be analysed from the perspective of trauma theory; (3) what the use of trauma theory in combination with the methods of folk narrative and oral history research can offer for a more diverse interpretation of such a story. The story selected for observation was written in 2001, focusing on events in Soviet Estonia (1940–1941, 1944–1991). At the time of telling this story, the Soviet era was publicly interpreted as a period of interruption of Estonian cultural and political continuity. Social scientists observed the Soviet period from the perspective of cultural trauma. In this way, the narrator presented complex past events in a framework that points to the restoration of historical justice. Although this story represents a positive attitude towards historical and cultural developments in Estonia, the analysis of this story indicates that traces of trauma can be found at the levels of the story that reflect the formation of the narrator’s identity.

Trauma or in search of lost agency

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to explore the healing power of psychoanalytic narrating of trauma and its being listened to as a way of recovering the agency that violence has stripped away. Based on the Freudian theory of trauma, Judith Butler’s theory of subjection and Hannah Arendt’s theory of action, I analyze how agency is not a full a priori but rather an a posteriori construction achieved, in a deferred manner, in the story told to another who listens.