Trauma

1
Trauma

• Globalization

2
Outline

• Definitions of Trauma
• How is trauma related to globalization?
• First Responses
• Historical Representation
• The following weeks
• Trauma and identity
• Trauma in Different Perspectives
• Trauma, its Mediatization and other responses
  ??? (doom to boom)

3
Trauma Definitions and Issues

• (1. a bodily wound ??, ??) 2. a wound, a breach
  on the mind ????
• Of victims of surviving witness of all of us
  of historys im/possibility of referentiality.
• surviving symptoms of shock, absorption and
  loss identity re-construction
• Representation delayed appearance twofold
  disjunction
• Between experience and testimony of Witness
  reliability of memory and memory work. Witness
  can only be accessible to the extent that it is
  not fully perceived or experienced as it occurs.
• Between representation and understanding of
  Reader an obligation to recognize anothers
  experience as irreducibly other and irreducible
  to generalizations.

4
Trauma Definitions and Issues (2)

• delayed appearance (or belated impact) a wound
  that cries out that tells us a reality which
  cannot be otherwise known.
• Tassos story of Tancred and Clorinda (textbook
  chap 8)
• Tancred kills Clorinda when she is disguised as
  an enemy knight.
• After her burial he goes into a magic forest and
  slashes a tall tree with his sword.
• The blood streams from the cut and the voice of
  Clorinda is heard complaining that he has wounded
  his beloved again.
• Cathy Caruth The voice of his beloved bears
  witness to the past he has unwittingly repeated.
  (trauma as double)
• The story of traumathe story of belated
  experience

5
Examples of Collective/Cultural Trauma

• Wars ? Genocide e.g. Holocaust (the systematic
  state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish
  men, women, and children and millions of others
  by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during
  World War II. The Germans called this the final
  solution to the Jewish question.)
• ? Migration (e.g. partition in India migration
  to Taiwan)
• Natural Disasters (earthquake, typhoon,
  hurricane virus and transmittable diseases
  (AIDS, SARS, Ebola) technology breakdown
  accidents (plane crash, blackout).

6
How is trauma related to globalization?

• Anti-Globalization (corporate-driven
  globalization resistance to U.S. government, to
  the West, to McWorld) in the form of terrorism
  
• Many historical traumas (e.g. Holocaust Vietnam
  War 911) have to do with racial/cultural
  oppression and resistance to it.
• The news get to be widespread
• Economic crises and some natural disasters
  interconnected

7
First Responses EMOTIONAL REACTIONS 1) Lack of
control

• A. Loss of volume control
• (textbook chap 7 p. 4 loss of volume
  controlmodulating the level of arousal.)
• shock and disbelief fear and/or anxiety
  grief, disorientation, denial
• hyper-alertness or hypervigilance (????) (e.g.
  fear of fire in Summer Flower)
• irritability, restlessness, outbursts of anger or
  rage
• emotional swings -- like crying and then laughing
  
• B. Learned Helplessness (p. 3) feelings of
  helplessness, panic, feeling out of control
• C. Thinking under Stress -- worrying or
  ruminating -- intrusive thoughts of the trauma ?
  Action not Thought (oversimplified decision poor
  judgement)

source
8
EMOTIONAL REACTIONS (2) Fragmentation

• A. of the past -- Remembering under Stress
  speechlessness non-verbal selective memories p.
  5 (egret, cat, teapot) ?amnesia flashbacks --
  feeling like the trauma is happening now
• Nightmares
• B. Isolation loss of contact tendency to
  isolate oneself
• feelings of detachment
• concern over burdening others with problems
• difficulty trusting and/or feelings of betrayal
• difficulty concentrating or remembering
• feelings of self-blame and/or survivor guilt
• shame
• diminished interest in everyday activities or
  depression

source
9
EMOTIONAL REACTIONS (2) Fragmentation

• Dissociation (p. 7) disruption of the usu.
  integrated functions of consciousness, memory
  identity, or perception of environment. ?
  fragmentation of identity.

source
10
EMOTIONAL REACTIONS (3) Pessimism or Escapism

• Pessimism loss of a sense of order or fairness
  in the world expectation of doom and fear of the
  future
• Escapism and/or rationalization
• minimizing the experience (first experience of
  numbness ? mechanism of denial (????, disavowal)
• ? numbness emotional numbing or restricted range
  of feelings
• ? return, delayed experience
• ? reconstruction of myth consumption of disaster
  ?????
• attempts to avoid anything associated with trauma
  
• increased need to control everyday experiences

source
11
First Responses Physical

• PHYSICAL REACTIONS or symptoms
• aches and pains like headaches, backaches,
  stomach aches
• sudden sweating and/or heart palpitations
  (fluttering)
• changes in sleep patterns, appetite, interest in
  sex
• constipation or diarrhea
• more susceptible to colds and illnesses
• easily startled by noises or unexpected touch
  (the fight-or-flight reaction)
• increased use of alcohol or drugs and/or
  overeating (lack of volume control)

source
12
Post-Traumatic Syndrome

• Denial
• or addiction p. 9 (self-mutilation, violence,
  drug)
• --addicted to their own internal endorphins
  feeling calm only when they are under stress.
• -- death drive
• -- alteration in the opioid system (narcotic?).
• Traumatic Reenactment (repetition compulsion)
  acting out, repeating the action without knowing
  it.
• Trauma-Bonding (The English Patient the man and
  the woman in Hiroshima mon amour)

Endorphin a chemical naturally released in the
brain to reduce pain, and which in large amounts
can make you feel relaxed and/or energetic.