Along with fracturing identity and preserving disorganized and incomprehensible memory flashes of the causal event, trauma breaks the life-narrative of the person, a large part of their loss of identity. The same type of narrative break also applies to communal trauma. A horrific event seems to stop time, severing the pre-trauma past from the present, which only ticks forward on clocks and calendars. The trauma survivor keeps returning to the moment of disruption, replaying the flashes and, at times, indulging in “what if?” fantasies. As long as that moment remains unprocessed and unintegrated, a person cannot move forward to the future. Their story freezes; the chapter read again and again but in an unfamiliar language
Once a trauma survivor feels safe and supported, they often begin to verbalize their memories of events, however fragmented and disorganized early attempts may be. The importance placed on patients telling their stories reflects the value of addressing and processing traumatic memories in order to recover. Survivors experiencing flashbacks are forced into a passive role regarding their experience and the associated memories. Narrative formation places control with the survivor who can then choose who to tell, what to share at particular times with particular people, and what meaning to attach to certain details of the narrative. Repeated storytelling calls forth lost episodes in events and begins to attach the memories to other schema (Brison 1999; Young 1995). Eventually, this repetition can lead to more control of the memory intrusions and gradually to recover. Only through translating and telling the trauma story does the personal clock begin to tick again. This is somewhat true for traumatized communities as well, returning to impact sites to search for survivors and recover the dead. The slow sifting through debris and clearing the rubble is akin to the survivor’s efforts to sift through memory and clear intrusions. For a while, the community is haunted by impact sites which seem to define them to the world more than their pre-disaster past ever had. It is in these moments that they need to find meaning most, to raise details which define their experience while offering hope that a new chapter will begin. Often, however, retelling the story of one’s trauma is not enough to fully integrate the experience and dispel the psychological effects of trauma, but breaking the silence is a first step. As Laub explains, “None find peace is silence, even when it is their choice to remain silent. […] The ‘not telling’ of the story serves as a perpetuation of its tyranny” (Laub 1995:64). Whether the traumatic story speak of disaster, war, personal violence, or another trauma, the basic features of PTSD remain the same and thus the course of …show more content…
Often, initial attempts to verbalize the experience deliver chronologically-disorganized details given without emotion while missing several episodes, and failing to include an interpretive aspect necessary to build meaning and integrate the event into the life-narrative. In counseling sessions, patient and therapist work together to identify and then reassemble the pieces of a large and complex puzzle. At times, when traumatic amnesia takes part or all of the memory, altered states like hypnosis can be used, but rarely is this necessary as the process of reassembling known pieces may summon the obscured details (Herman
Once a trauma survivor feels safe and supported, they often begin to verbalize their memories of events, however fragmented and disorganized early attempts may be. The importance placed on patients telling their stories reflects the value of addressing and processing traumatic memories in order to recover. Survivors experiencing flashbacks are forced into a passive role regarding their experience and the associated memories. Narrative formation places control with the survivor who can then choose who to tell, what to share at particular times with particular people, and what meaning to attach to certain details of the narrative. Repeated storytelling calls forth lost episodes in events and begins to attach the memories to other schema (Brison 1999; Young 1995). Eventually, this repetition can lead to more control of the memory intrusions and gradually to recover. Only through translating and telling the trauma story does the personal clock begin to tick again. This is somewhat true for traumatized communities as well, returning to impact sites to search for survivors and recover the dead. The slow sifting through debris and clearing the rubble is akin to the survivor’s efforts to sift through memory and clear intrusions. For a while, the community is haunted by impact sites which seem to define them to the world more than their pre-disaster past ever had. It is in these moments that they need to find meaning most, to raise details which define their experience while offering hope that a new chapter will begin. Often, however, retelling the story of one’s trauma is not enough to fully integrate the experience and dispel the psychological effects of trauma, but breaking the silence is a first step. As Laub explains, “None find peace is silence, even when it is their choice to remain silent. […] The ‘not telling’ of the story serves as a perpetuation of its tyranny” (Laub 1995:64). Whether the traumatic story speak of disaster, war, personal violence, or another trauma, the basic features of PTSD remain the same and thus the course of …show more content…
Often, initial attempts to verbalize the experience deliver chronologically-disorganized details given without emotion while missing several episodes, and failing to include an interpretive aspect necessary to build meaning and integrate the event into the life-narrative. In counseling sessions, patient and therapist work together to identify and then reassemble the pieces of a large and complex puzzle. At times, when traumatic amnesia takes part or all of the memory, altered states like hypnosis can be used, but rarely is this necessary as the process of reassembling known pieces may summon the obscured details (Herman