Survivors of trauma need a willing audience to reconstruct their selves

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. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 403

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in silence and listening (One Square Inch of Silence, Deep Listening) — whose unwillingness to hear trauma is itself a form of silencing.