Recovery from trauma depends on others’ willingness to hear

Evidence

“In order to construct self-narratives,” notes Susan Brison discussing victims of rape and torture, “we need not only the words with which to tell our stories but also an audience able and willing to hear us and to understand our words as we intend them. This aspect of remaking a self in the aftermath of trauma highlights the dependency of the self on others and helps to explain why it is so difficult for survivors to recover when others are unwilling [or unable?] to listen to what they endured.” The ability to live sanely after a traumatic experience of pain is always dependent on the responses of others. Pain, one might venture, is neither a brute reality undermining thought nor an interpretation that is the occasion of ideological or scientific elaboration. It can be an active, practical relationship inhabiting time. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 403 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In order to construct self-narratives,” notes Susan Brison discussing victims of rape and torture, “we need not only the words with which to tell our stories but also an audience able and willing to hear us and to understand our words as we intend them. This aspect of remaking a self in the aftermath of trauma highlights the dependency of the self on others and helps to explain why it is so difficult for survivors to recover when others are unwilling [or unable?] to listen to what they endured.” The ability to live sanely after a traumatic experience of pain is always dependent on the responses of others. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 403 (#expands, via linked claim)

However, the personal transformation from moral engagement to moral disengagement suggests a more complex process. In the course of providing ameliorative services, support personnel hear the families of the victim recount the brutal ways in which their loved ones were murdered. Repeated exposure to graphic accounts of heinous crimes can gradually instill revulsion toward the inmates. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2063 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Affirmation from a recruiter can reverse the damage of abusive family treatment. — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America:…, 377; Recovery from trauma depends on willing listeners, not just the survivor’s words. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 403; Survivors of trauma need a willing audience to reconstruct their selves — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 403 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Recovery from trauma depends on willing listeners, not just the survivor’s words. #corroborates (1.00) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 403
• Survivors of trauma need a willing audience to reconstruct their selves #expands (0.92) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 403
• Hearing victims’ trauma accounts drives empathy-workers to dehumanize the condemned #complicates (0.78) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2063
• Emotional disclosure without narrative integration can increase distress instead of healing #complicates (0.74) — , The Rod and the Child, 8713