For many many years large numbers of people have felt that the arts must be that they have some obvious uplifting social function--the study of the arts even more so, and so its purpose is conceived of as either didactic or therapeutic. The artist/writer creates as a form of pathology or therapy and the critic does the diagnosis, i.e., the finding out of the "real plot." It is almost impossible to fail at diagnosing fictional characters or dead authors, and it has zero professional consequences unlike practicing therapy on actual people, so you can see the appeal. The therapeutic model is all over the creative writing industry as well, and into the "literary nonfiction" that was a thing for a while. Oh and in case I haven't made it clear I loathe all of it and only managed to read The Color Purple in tiny homeopathic doses over many years, without ever overcoming my dislike. The trauma narrative fits into this industry like a long-lost relative.
Right now I'm in the middle of "The Body Keeps the Score" and as a person who has never been able to get as much out of self-help literature as I expected I'm really surprised at the effect of reading it, but for me it's less about trauma than it is about patterns of expectation and habits of coping that I learned just from what happens in life. It's really been interesting for me about bodily self-awareness, about anxiety and tension and becoming more self-aware in order to be more conscious, i.e., have more capacity for experience. In that it seems like the most literary self-help book (maybe the only literary self-help book) I'v ever read. But I do not doubt what the author says about the prevalence of violent trauma and I think we seriously need to be thinking about this. And I'm also impressed that the trauma discussion prompts us to question--as we should question--the standards by which we judge how much is an acceptable amount of emotional distress for other people (it is always other people--for me of course it is zero) to endure. I mean look around. So on the one hand I think it is really important that this kind of self-reflection and exploration happens and that people do it. Carrying that book around with me I've had people just stop and talk with me about it--a casher at Trader Joe's a guard at the National Gallery. This is real and serious stuff.
I'm not against people using art as therapy. I think it's lovely because the wonderfulness of the human imagination is that there is so much of it, so much plasticity and generative capability, that we surge past some simplistic purpose to interestingness without even trying. But I don't think using therapy as art is the same thing, because it does the opposite: it makes the narrative conform to a certain kind of received "knowledge" about cause and effect (hence the deadening of plot after the big reveal), and the findings of amateur psychoanalysts about the mental health of dead people have no particular privilege as criticism, but congratulations on all that "research," I guess.
The book I would read is the one where character X comes out of years of therapy and finds that life is actually still very confusing and unsatisfying and decisions are just as hard to make and she makes the same misjudgments about people's characters based on either trifles or her own personal unacknowledged social ambitions. Wrapped into the trauma narrative and I am sure part of its big draw is that it renders a person sinless and, in the moment of self-discovery, born again into restored innocence. I don't think this appeal needs any explanation in this country, and while I think that everybody should have all the chances to remake themselves better, this is a surprisingly cheap one in terms of self-awareness and actual effort. What we really need is to get rid of the idea that a person who is conscious enough of an injustice committed against them to call it by its proper name must take a share in the disgrace of it. That is what is behind this desire for retroactive innocence, the belief that the victim of a crime must be pure of any sin.
At the same time, though, people learning to find words for what has been unspoken is the way one gets to the possibility of change; and it is also the way back to the truly literary. Someone is writing the trauma book that will make sense and bring the newness of self-knowledge to brilliant life and we will all be better off. But it will probably not look like trauma fiction. At least I sincerely hope not.
Very well said John! Trauma is heavily emphasized in novels because it sells! It sells books, newspapers and magazines and satisfies a sad need for gratuitous thrills at someone else’s expense, be it fiction or nonfiction. I’m a retired mental health counselor and in my years of practice I have experienced so much secondary trauma listening to the heartbreaking lives of clients that I have no need to read about it for”pleasure.” I believe it is also reflective of the cultural breakdowns you mentioned, as well as a deep societal sense of isolation of the soul. I hope as we eventually come out of the pandemic our thirst for trauma will subside and our mental health improves. Authors, please pay attention!
I really liked your argument that the increase in the trauma talk - through our personal conversations and through literature - is in direct relation to the decline of the public institutions. They do have a comforting and community role, as you mention.
As I'm publishing here chapters of my self-growth memoir, which of course is filled with trauma, dissected and analyzed, it's interesting to read about the larger theme - why do we need to write so much about trauma? In my case, to offer inspiration and comfort to people going through similar events in their own lives.
For many many years large numbers of people have felt that the arts must be that they have some obvious uplifting social function--the study of the arts even more so, and so its purpose is conceived of as either didactic or therapeutic. The artist/writer creates as a form of pathology or therapy and the critic does the diagnosis, i.e., the finding out of the "real plot." It is almost impossible to fail at diagnosing fictional characters or dead authors, and it has zero professional consequences unlike practicing therapy on actual people, so you can see the appeal. The therapeutic model is all over the creative writing industry as well, and into the "literary nonfiction" that was a thing for a while. Oh and in case I haven't made it clear I loathe all of it and only managed to read The Color Purple in tiny homeopathic doses over many years, without ever overcoming my dislike. The trauma narrative fits into this industry like a long-lost relative.
Right now I'm in the middle of "The Body Keeps the Score" and as a person who has never been able to get as much out of self-help literature as I expected I'm really surprised at the effect of reading it, but for me it's less about trauma than it is about patterns of expectation and habits of coping that I learned just from what happens in life. It's really been interesting for me about bodily self-awareness, about anxiety and tension and becoming more self-aware in order to be more conscious, i.e., have more capacity for experience. In that it seems like the most literary self-help book (maybe the only literary self-help book) I'v ever read. But I do not doubt what the author says about the prevalence of violent trauma and I think we seriously need to be thinking about this. And I'm also impressed that the trauma discussion prompts us to question--as we should question--the standards by which we judge how much is an acceptable amount of emotional distress for other people (it is always other people--for me of course it is zero) to endure. I mean look around. So on the one hand I think it is really important that this kind of self-reflection and exploration happens and that people do it. Carrying that book around with me I've had people just stop and talk with me about it--a casher at Trader Joe's a guard at the National Gallery. This is real and serious stuff.
I'm not against people using art as therapy. I think it's lovely because the wonderfulness of the human imagination is that there is so much of it, so much plasticity and generative capability, that we surge past some simplistic purpose to interestingness without even trying. But I don't think using therapy as art is the same thing, because it does the opposite: it makes the narrative conform to a certain kind of received "knowledge" about cause and effect (hence the deadening of plot after the big reveal), and the findings of amateur psychoanalysts about the mental health of dead people have no particular privilege as criticism, but congratulations on all that "research," I guess.
The book I would read is the one where character X comes out of years of therapy and finds that life is actually still very confusing and unsatisfying and decisions are just as hard to make and she makes the same misjudgments about people's characters based on either trifles or her own personal unacknowledged social ambitions. Wrapped into the trauma narrative and I am sure part of its big draw is that it renders a person sinless and, in the moment of self-discovery, born again into restored innocence. I don't think this appeal needs any explanation in this country, and while I think that everybody should have all the chances to remake themselves better, this is a surprisingly cheap one in terms of self-awareness and actual effort. What we really need is to get rid of the idea that a person who is conscious enough of an injustice committed against them to call it by its proper name must take a share in the disgrace of it. That is what is behind this desire for retroactive innocence, the belief that the victim of a crime must be pure of any sin.
At the same time, though, people learning to find words for what has been unspoken is the way one gets to the possibility of change; and it is also the way back to the truly literary. Someone is writing the trauma book that will make sense and bring the newness of self-knowledge to brilliant life and we will all be better off. But it will probably not look like trauma fiction. At least I sincerely hope not.
Very well said John! Trauma is heavily emphasized in novels because it sells! It sells books, newspapers and magazines and satisfies a sad need for gratuitous thrills at someone else’s expense, be it fiction or nonfiction. I’m a retired mental health counselor and in my years of practice I have experienced so much secondary trauma listening to the heartbreaking lives of clients that I have no need to read about it for”pleasure.” I believe it is also reflective of the cultural breakdowns you mentioned, as well as a deep societal sense of isolation of the soul. I hope as we eventually come out of the pandemic our thirst for trauma will subside and our mental health improves. Authors, please pay attention!
I really liked your argument that the increase in the trauma talk - through our personal conversations and through literature - is in direct relation to the decline of the public institutions. They do have a comforting and community role, as you mention.
As I'm publishing here chapters of my self-growth memoir, which of course is filled with trauma, dissected and analyzed, it's interesting to read about the larger theme - why do we need to write so much about trauma? In my case, to offer inspiration and comfort to people going through similar events in their own lives.
Maybe we share our traumas to feel less alone.