Classical Trauma Theory in literature and psychology both make unique contributions to our current understanding of one’s experience of suffering. Classical trauma theorists, such as Carnuth and Felman are deeply rooted in psychoanalysis (repression, language, unconscioius). Merleau-Ponty shifts our focus from the hidden mind uncovered in psychoanalysis to the lived body of phenomenological inquiry. Merleau-Ponty offers several important contributions in reconceptualizing classical trauma theory. First, as we inbabit lived bodies, rather than being bodies, trauma fundamentally changes how we perceive the world. For example, in the “I can become the I cannot,” trauma shatters our ability to experience the world as a place of possibility, rather it becomes a place of fear. Second, Merleau-Ponty’s view of our automatic self, our habit-body, suggest naturally experience the world without thinking becomes stuck. The habit-body is stuck in the moment of trauma, the eternal recurrance, or Freud’s return of the repressed. They body become situated in the past. Finally, trauma creates a de-worlding experiences, a void between the self and the world. Merleau-Ponty described this as the breakdown of the chiasm. All of these concepts are critical in both literature and psychology for understanding how an individual client or character experiences trauma and are explored in this paper.

Authors:
James Geidner, University of Wisconsin, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. James Geidner is currently a professor at University of Wisconsin-Superior. His current interests focus on trauma theory in both mental health and literature. Dr. Geidner is currently working on trauma theory through the eyes of French philosophy

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