About trauma

Imagine visiting a hospital after a frightening experience.

A child can grow up knowing that certain questions are unwelcome.

Trauma is often discussed as a personal experience.

Trauma is often hard to speak about.

Trauma theory has become an important way to read literature.

Trauma is not only about fear or memory.

Trauma does not only hurt the mind or body.

Trauma changes the way people remember.

PTSD and dissociation are often connected.

PTSD is often described as a disorder that begins after trauma.

Trauma is one of the most used words of our time.

Note to my readers: I’m broadening the focus of this blog to include aspects of trauma less directly associated with the theory of trauma, aspects not usually described as traumatic.

Why Did My Friend Kill Himself?

Freud’s speculations about the death drive (Todestrieb) are no longer accepted by most psychoanalysts. /1/ Yet, Freud’s thoughts about the death drive are worth considering from the perspective of trauma theory, since Freud regarded the inability of the t…

Aftermath I’ve rarely devoted a post to criticizing one book.

Peter Levine goes further than Bessel van der Kolk on the importance of body memory.

Literary theory is not trauma theory.

We know what good depression treatment looks like.

“Tell Me Why It Hurts: How Bessel van der Kolk’s Once-Controversial Theory of Trauma Became the Dominant Way We Make Sense of Our Lives,” is a strikingly good article on the appeal of The Body Keeps the Score (New York Magazine, July 31, 2023).

People come here to die: Winnicott and the the trauma of old age This essay draws on my experience with a continuing care retirement community (CCRC).

Mourning and Melancholia: narcissism or object relations?

Kandel, The disordered mind.

Stephanie Foo went through hell, finally coming to terms with C-PTSD.

Judith Herman’s new book, Truth and Repair is disappointing A review in the New York Times calls Judith Herman’s recently published Truth and Repair, “a beautiful, profound and important book.”

A remarkable recent book, Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson, suggests a new way of thinking about the trauma experienced by large groups in stratified societies.

Author’s note: I could not write this post until after Trump was defeated; I’m not sure why.

Using Psychoanalysis to Understand #MeToo Memories This is not an original post.

Can psychoanalysis explain why people can be so cruel?

Epigenetics: of mice and men and women.

PTSD is torture.

Dori Laub has a bad trauma theory, but he has still made a contribution.

Is it time to drop the diagnosis of PTSD?

Trauma is the disruption of the ability to maintain relationships.

Are PTSD and C-PTSD dissociative disorders?

It’s time to stop letting the stressor define PTSD.

The best trauma narrative I know is Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of the Self, by Susan Brison.

Testimony can create the trauma it discovers.

Trauma escapes language, but so does life.

Trauma destroys meaning, and psychoanalysis is not the best way to understand how this happens.

Affect theory is coming to trauma theory.

The transference is always active between the scholar and what he or she studies.

There’s lots of talk these days about the transgenerational transmission of trauma (TTT).

Robert Stolorow’s Trauma and Human Existence represents the kind of book trauma theory needs more of, a book that connects the psychology of trauma with a philosophy of human existence.

Dori Laub puzzles me.

Most who study severe trauma agree that it stops time.

Many who study trauma from a psychoanalytic perspective turn to Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) in order to make sense of the apparent desire of people to repeat unpleasant experiences.

Trauma is a popular topic these days because it meets a widespread longing for intensity.

My main idea in this post: one reason the symptoms of trauma persist is because people become attached to their traumas.

The Urban Dictionary says that the “University of Google” refers to a major ignoramus who pretends to be an intellectual.

Bessel van der Kolk (vdK) is probably the world’s most well known trauma theorist.