Trauma, the Body and Transformation: A Narrative Inquiry PDF
Preview Trauma, the Body and Transformation: A Narrative Inquiry
Trauma, the Body and Transformation http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield of related interest Narrative Approaches to Working with Adult Male Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse The Clients’, the Counsellor’s and the Researcher’s Story Edited by Kim Etherington ISBN1853028185 Rehabilitation Counselling in Physical and Mental Health Edited by Kim Etherington ISBN1853029386 A House Next Door to Trauma Learning from Holocaust Survivors How to Respond to Atrocity Judith Hassan ISBN1853028673 Narratives in Psychiatry Maurice Greenberg, Sukhwinder Singh Shergill, George Szmukler and Digby Tantam ISBN1843101092 Psychodrama with Trauma Survivors Acting Out Your Pain Peter Felix Kellerman and M.K. Hudgins ISBN1853028932 Cracked Recovering After Traumatic Brain Injury Lynsey Calderwood ISBN1843100657 Counselling Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Second Edition Christiane Sanderson ISBN1853022527 Trauma, the Body and Transformation A Narrative Inquiry Edited by Kim Etherington Jessica Kingsley Publishers London and New York All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, England W1P 9HE. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher. Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work may result in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution. The right of the authors to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in the United Kingdom in 2003 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd 116 Pentonville Road London N1 9JB, England and 29 West 35th Street, 10th fl. New York, NY 10001-2299, USA www.jkp.com Copyright ©2003 Jessica Kingsley Publishers Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 1 84310 106 8 Printed and Bound in Great Britain by Athenaeum Press, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear Contents Dedication 7 Acknowledgements 8 Introduction 9 Kim Etherington, University of Bristol 1. Trauma, the Body and Transformation 22 Kim Etherington 2. All That You Make 39 Carole Mandeville, Counsellor and Writer 3. Angels Nesting in the Mind 52 Ruth L. Barnett, Psychotherapist 4. Stars in a Midnight Sky 65 Indu Khurana, Personal Development Practitioner 5. Journey of a Lifetime 77 Ginny Mayhew, Counsellor 6. Pretending To Be Me 94 Heather Weston, Community Counselling Service, North Somerset 7. Pain in Paradise: Healing in the Tao 107 Michael Wai Hin Len, Psychological-Pastoral Consultant 8. Around the Slices of Herself 121 Gillie Bolton, King’s College, London 9. From the Ashes 138 Matt Valentine, Counsellor, Therapist and Healer 10. The Silence of Somatisation 152 Jackie Kneeshaw, Counsellor 11. Guardian Angel’s Story 165 Kim Etherington 12. The Weaver’s Tale: Yarns and Threads 179 Kim Etherington The Contributors 198 Subject Index 200 Author Index 208 This book is dedicated with love and thanks to my dear friends Gillian and Mike Barry, who have always held my body, mind and spirit gently in their caring hands. Acknowledgements Thecreationofthisbookhasinvolvedanenormousamountofdedication, hard work and commitment by all of the authors who have offered their stories.Researchhasshownthatwritingstoriesaboutchildhoodtraumais difficultaswellasveryhealingandIbelieveit’struetosaythatallthecon- tributorstothisbookhaveexperiencedboththedifficultyandhealing.At times it has been hard for some people to continue and indeed some did not. I would like to thank all of the people involved in the creation of this book most sincerely for attempting to face that struggle, including those who did not continue to publication. Some authors were already very familiar with the art of writing, but telling their personal stories of trauma has taken most writers into new and unfamiliar parts of themselves and theirhistories.Thistakescourage.Allowingmetosharethosestorieswith the wider community takes even more courage. Many people have supported me in this project, through reading drafts, giving feedback, making suggestions including my fellow authors of this book. I would like to thank all of them especially Shirley Margerison, Michael Carroll, Janet May and members of our monthly narrative research group. My colleagues at the University of Bristol, espe- cially Tim Bond, Carol Graham, Wendy Laughlin, Ali Leftwich, Jane Speedy and Sheila Trahar, have stimulated me through our conversations aboutnarrativeandstoriesandhavesufferedmyagonisingontheprosand cons of attempting this work at all. Ihaveonceagainbeenfortunatetohavehadthesupportof thestaff at Jessica Kingsley Publishers who have always been so encouraging of my ideas, especially Amy Lankester-Owen and Claudia Conway. As ever, my husband and soul mate has been by my side, quietly nurturing me as I have travelled through this part of my journey. I would like to acknowledge his generosity in giving time and energy to support my work, especially important whilst I have been so closely involved in other people’s trauma stories at the same time as revisiting my own. 8 Introduction Kim Etherington Thetellerofchaosstoriesis,preeminently,thewoundedstoryteller,but those who are truly living the chaos cannot tell in words. Frank (1995, p.98) Making a coherent narrative out of experiences of childhood trauma is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks we can set ourselves and this is exactly what I set out to do through the creation of this book. Childhood traumacreateschaosinmanypeople’slivesandchaoscanleaveusspeech- less, voiceless and silenced. But the body, the physical foundation upon whichourpersonhoodiserected(Lowen1967),andourspirit,theessence of our uniqueness and individuality, are rarely silenced, even by trauma. Without a voice our body finds other ways to speak for us; our spirit survives and transcends our physical body. This book is full of stories about survival and transformation. These stories are told by people who have discovered ways of relieving their bodies of the task of speaking for them; people who have found ways of honouring their chaos and accepting the reality of trauma in their lives. They have ‘met their suffering head on’ (Frank, p.115) and found a voice with which to narrate their stories now that they feel ready to stand back and reflect upon their lives. Background Back in 1996 I decided to try and discover how people understood the links between the experience of trauma and the body. My interest in this topic stemmed primarily from a growing understanding of my own complex relationship with my body and the illnesses I had suffered over 9
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