Connected to some of the ideas posited by Caruth and Freud in the readings from last week, one of the ideas I found most intriguing in Herman’s Truth and Repair is how central the role of the witness, bystander, or community is, both in how the trauma is experienced and how it is healed.  From the beginning of the book, Herman defines trauma as a “social problem” which proposes a shift in the healing process, moving the full burden off of the individual and spreading it out amongst the community members. (9). Herman continues this idea of the social, in her definition of shame as “a social emotion, a signal of threat not to life but to human connection,” furthering the idea that trauma does not exist solely between the in abused and the abuser, but is shaped by the larger social sphere (30). Herman continues this in her exploration of healing practices such as Radical Justice which requires active participation from the community members throughout the process.

 

As I was reading, I kept thinking about what it means to witness especially in the context of performance. There is a kind of agreement in witnessing, sometimes a compliance with the social order or hierarchies as Herman suggests. What kinds of agreements are we making when we enter a performance space? What is our role? What burden or responsibility to the performance, performers, or fellow audience members do we assume in these spaces? Can the space of performance, which often clearly defines the witness, be a space to practice some of the actions Herman proposes?

 

In continuing to think about healing, the van der Kolk reading made me questions: is talking about and naming a trauma or experience enough for healing? As van der Kolk shows, trauma effects the actual structure of the brain. “When a circuit fires repeatedly, it can become a default setting – the response most likely to occur. If you feel safe and loved, your brain becomes specialized in exploration, play, and cooperation; if you are frightened and unwanted, it specializes in managing feeling so fear and abandonment.” (56). In the case of Stan and Ute, he also shows how this rewiring can present very differently: intense flashbacks in the case of Stan in which his brain reacts as if the crash is happening in real time, and a numbing in Ute in which many parts of her brain shut off. In the case of Ute, van der Kolk explains that talk therapy is not enough because first Ute needs to be able to turn on parts of her feeling brain again (72). I was thinking about this in the connection to Radical Justice and the Court System, which both rely heavily on spoke narrative. What other forms of knowledge could the court consider? What other ways of structuring these justice systems would allow for healing on a bodily level?