Tea at Trianon: The Soul in Trauma

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, June 9, 2022

The Soul in Trauma

From Church Life Journal:

Victims of mass violence such as the Boston Marathon bombing commonly experience a range of physical and emotional effects in the immediate aftermath and long term. Some of these effects include hypervigilance, depression, anxiousness, brain fog, and exhaustion, as well as physiological symptoms like headaches, back pain, digestive problems, etc. When these symptoms persist long-term, they can have a detrimental impact on a person’s quality of life.

Yet, beyond the physical realm, is the moral injury to the soul. The very nature of trauma is to rupture what was once whole. The soul, as the core of who one is, is no longer in unity with the whole person and needs healing. The term “moral injury” was originally used to describe soldiers who have committed acts (or failed to act) against their own values. The term resurfaced early on in the COVID-19 pandemic when equipment shortages forced physicians to make decisions about who had the best chance of survival. In “Beyond PTSD: Soldiers Have Injured Souls,” Diane Silver describes moral injury as a “deep soul wound that pierces a person’s identity, sense of morality, and relationship to society.”

This reminds me of a mother I worked with after the Marathon Bombings. She was a spectator with her young children near the finish line and contacted me needing help for intrusive thoughts that disturbed her everyday activities. Just before the explosions, the perpetrators approached her and her children, trying to convince them to move closer to the finish line (where the bombs were planted). She took their advice and tried to make her way through the crowded sidewalk. It became too much of a challenge so she gave up and went home. She blamed herself for months after, for what almost happened. But this is a lie: she was not guilty of anything. These are the lies that ground themselves in the body and corrupt the soul.

Having worked with hundreds of victims of the Marathon Bombing confirmed for me the need for a new model of treatment for traumatic stress that goes beyond the mind-body paradigm: a model that is inclusive of wounds to the soul. Naturally, I was intrigued to read Julia Yost’s recent review of Bessel van der Kolk’s bestselling book, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in Healing of Trauma. Van der Kolk is famous for theorizing that traumas are inscribed in our flesh.

Yost recognizes the book’s appeal as a validation to sufferers who may feel like they are coming apart, unable to battle the mental fog, intense range of emotions, and physical symptoms long after the traumatic event has taken place, but she is skeptical of a theory that suggests trauma is everywhere. There is the potential for mislabeling personal difficulties as trauma, thereby creating a culture of traumatized posers. Yost has a point, but she misses an opportunity to expand the far-reaching effects of individual and collective trauma. Admittedly, Yost said recently in a podcast she herself has not experienced trauma, and perhaps is somewhat removed from the urgency of van der Kolk’s message.

Nevertheless, Yost captures what I would suggest is the hidden gem in her review of van der Kolk’s book, quoting a psychiatric expert who notes that the book is an “affirmation of the embodied soul”[1] Trauma may be inscribed in the flesh, but our body is formed by the soul. The soul therefore absorbs the impact. In this article, I will explore the soul as the core identity of the person, establish the need to consider the soul in modern treatment approaches to trauma, and demonstrate that the whole person can only be healed from trauma through the body/soul connection. (Read more.)