Judith Herman and Contemporary Trauma Theory

Author(s): Susan Rubin Suleiman

Source: Women's Studies Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1/2, Witness (Spring - Summer, 2008), pp.
276-281
Published by: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27649762
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 ANDCONTEMPORARY
HERMAN
JUDITH THEORY
TRAUMA

SUSAN SULEIMAN
RUBIN

Trauma studies constitutes a today, keeping whole armies of

huge field
scholars, and historians as well as clini
theorists?philosophers, literary
There are reasons for this, with the
cians?very busy. many starting
enormous and still interest in the Holocaust and other collective
growing
historical traumas of stress disorder, which
(the diagnosis posttraumatic
first entered the American Psychiatric Association's manual
diagnostic
in 1980, was based on of Vietnam War and
largely symptoms veterans),
to the increased clinical awareness of sexual abuse as a
extending phe
nomenon of "everyday life" for both adults and children.
There exists both a wide consensus theorists on a cer
today among
tain definition of trauma, and a and sometimes violent debate
strong
about of trauma, as its relation to mem
specific aspects notably regards

ory. The importance of Judith Herman's work is that she is one of the

pioneering clinicians in the field as well as amajor player in the theoret

ical debate.

What is the consensus about trauma? seems to agree that a

Everyone
traumatic event the human to life,"
"overwhelm[s] ordinary adaptations
as Herman it. "Unlike misfortunes," she writes,
puts commonplace
"traumatic events involve threats to life or or
generally bodily integrity,
a close encounter with violence and death" 1992,
personal (Herman 33).
A more neurologically based definition would be that a traumatic
event?or "traumatic an excess of external stimuli
Stressor"?produces
and a excess of excitation in the brain. When attacked in
corresponding
this way, the brain is not able to assimilate or the event,
fully "process"
and responds through various mechanisms such as psychological numb
or down of normal emotional Some theorists also
ing, shutting responses.
claim that in situations of extreme stress, a dissociation takes the
place:

subject "splits" off part of itself from the experience, producing "multi
ple personalities" in the process. The diagnosis of MPD (multiple person
was once very rare, but became common for a while
ality disorder) quite

WSQ:
[ Women's Studies Quarterly 36: 1& 2 (Spring/Summer 2008)]
? 2008
by Susan Rubin Suleiman. All rights reserved.

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 RUBINSULEIMAN 277

in the 1980s and 1990s. Symptoms of MPD, according to clinicians who

it, indicate earlier trauma, even if?or if?

diagnose always especially
the trauma is not remembered the patient.
by
This iswhere we enter the contested of trauma The
territory theory.
most of debate concerns the relation of trauma to
important subject
and came about as a result of a number of cases in the 1980s
memory legal
recovered of sexual abuse. There are two very hostile
involving memory

here, as far as I can see, and both of them are linked in

camps interesting

ways to Freud. Members of the first camp, which includes clinicians such
as Herman as well as researchers, them Bessel van der
Judith among

Kolk, believe firmly in the theory of dissociation, which is related to

(though not identical with) the concept of repressed memory, or trau

matic amnesia. to this view, the more horrific and
According prolonged
the trauma, the more the has a to dissociate and there
subject tendency
fore have no conscious of the traumatic event. Thus, a child or
memory
even an adolescent who is subjected to repeated sexual abuse by a family
member well not remember it until he or she overwhelm
may very (the

ing majority being girls) enters into therapy as an adult; at that point, the

may recover memories in a process, sometimes with the

patient gradual

help of hypnosis. Only by finally remembering the repressed trauma can

the move on to recovery, that is, to "mastery" and
patient healing.

Judith Herman writes:

The may not have full recall of the traumatic and

patient history

may initially deny such a history, even with careful, direct ques
. . . If the
tioning. therapist believes the patient is suffering from
a traumatic she should share this information
syndrome, fully
with the is power. The traumatized person
patient. Knowledge
is often relieved to learn the true name of her condition.
simply
her she the process of mastery.
By ascertaining diagnosis, begins
. . . She discovers that she is not others have suffered in
alone;

similar ... A framework that relates the

ways. conceptual
with and to the trauma
patient's problems identity relationships

history provides
a useful basis for formation of a therapeutic
alliance. This framework both recognizes the harmful nature of
the abuse and a reasonable the
provides explanation for patient's persis
tent difficulties. (1992-1997, 157-58; my emphasis)

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278 JUDITH ANDCONTEMPORARY
HERMAN TRAUMA
THEORY

Ihave to admit that I am uncomfortable with these formulations, for

several reasons. First, there is the disturbing possibility that the therapist
is imposing an interpretive framework on the patient ("if the therapist

believes"). While this may provide a kind of relief, since the patient's
are a causal and the into rela
problems given explanation bring patient
tion with others who have suffered in similar ways ("she is not alone"), it
can also wreak havoc in real life, as members are viewed
family suddenly
as of horrific abuse. Herman herself manifests a cer
perpetrators Judith
tain vacillation in the passage, between the trauma
preceding proposing
as a heuristic a "framework that a reason
diagnosis paradigm, provides
able for what ails the and that the
explanation" patient, assuming
framework describes an actual state of events?"the trau
explanatory
matic But it seems to me crucial to maintain the difference
history."
between those two views. If a can find relief a
patient by constructing
of childhood trauma that she does not recall, or that she
story actually
recalls after much "direct the that is one
only questioning" by therapist,

thing; if the patient then goes on to claim, whether in a court of law or

in a circle, that the construction to historical
merely family corresponds
fact in the absence of any other evidence, that is a very different thing. (I
"in the absence of other evidence," because there
emphasize obviously
are cases of abuse that are documented at the time occur, or
many they
are corroborated members even if the has or
by family patient forgotten,
else were never in the first those cases are not in
forgotten place; question

here.)

Interestingly, Herman's theory is derived from Freud in some

respects and is extremely critical of him in others. The idea of repressed

memories, which is on the of the unconscious, is defi
dependent concept

nitely Freudian, and Freud never abandoned it;what he did abandon was
the idea that such memories to actual events, rather
always correspond
than the desires and fantasies. As is well known, in
representing patient's
the late 1890s he abandoned the "seduction
theory" that he had advanced
in several essays published a few years earlier, which carried with it the
concept of unconscious memories of childhood trauma. Herman
Judith
and others part company with him there, him for abandoning
blaming
the seduction theory and not believing his patients.
At this we encounter the second of trauma
point, camp theory,
which has proceeded along two paths?in both, what is contested is the
concept of memory. First, some theorists have back to
repressed gone

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 RUBINSULEIMAN 279

Freud's original papers from the 1890s (in particular his 1893 paper "The

Aetiology of Hysteria") that deal with the seduction theory; they discov
ered that he too tended to his own constructions on his
impose patients?
in other words, say, it was not that he gave up believing his
they patients'
memories of childhood abuse, but that he stopped trying to force his own
theory of "repressed" sexual abuse in childhood down his patients'
throats. Instead, these theorists, Freud started a new
say forcing theory
on his centered on the Mikel
patients, Oedipus complex. Borch-Jacobsen
and Ian Hacking (both are philosophers, not psychologists) are among
the leaders of this branch of the "anti-Freud" camp. They not only blame
Freud for imposing his own unjustified constructions on his early hysteric

patients, but also then blame him for wanting to "cover up" his "crime"
and inventing the Oedipus complex in the process! Borch-Jacobsen has
written a number of quite violent books against Freud and has also edited
a collective volume titled Le livre noir de lapsychanalyse, whose title echoes
those of earlier "black books" detailing the crimes of Nazism and com
munism. However, even if Freud was indeed often guilty of imposing his
own constructions on his that does not mean that all his theories
patients,
about the human are less, criminal.
psyche wrong?much
The other branch of the camp is repre
"anti-repressed memory"
sented clinicians and researchers, foremost among them
by psychological
Elizabeth Loftus and Richard McNally. The theorists in this group could
be called hard-nosed empiricists: to test the hypothesis of repressed trau
matic and recovered on thousands of
memory memory, they rely empir
ical experiments that have been done on both animals and live subjects.
Loftus has shown that many are to false memories
people prone having
in not false memories of trauma, because it
"implanted" them?though
would be unethical to try to prove that empirically; asMcNally points
out, cannot that were traumatized as children
you persuade people they
for the sake of an But who "remember"
experiment. people vividly
a
being by aliens are
abducted good nonexperimental example of delu
sion functioning as firmly held memory.
makes some based on his exhaus
McNally very strong arguments,
tive review of the literature as well as on his own research. Memories of

trauma, he claims, cannot be dissociated or the

repressed?on contrary,
the more violent the trauma, the more are to remember it,
subjects likely
indeed to never forget if they want to. McNally does not reject
it even
the reality of such traumas as childhood sexual abuse, but he argues that

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280 HERMAN
JUDITH ANDCONTEMPORARY
TRAUMA
THEORY

such abuse is remembered if it occurred after the of two

always age
that no one remembers traumatic or
(before age, generally anything,
It's true, he says, that may not think about such traumatic
not). subjects
events for many years and then remember them because some
suddenly
event triggers the memory, but McNally wants to distinguish this kind of

forgetting from repressed memory or dissociated memory, because they

an to remember, whereas events in one's life is a
imply inability forgetting
function of memory and its
ordinary lapses.
I find many of McNally's arguments persuasive and also support his
insistence on the need to look for archival evidence
corroborating
whenever in cases of trauma. often fabricate
possible reported People
memories of horrific that never Vietnam
experiences happened (some
veterans who claim to have been in battle were in fact never deployed),

especially in a cultural and legal environment where a victim

being
doesn't mean that all those to suffer from
"pays"?which claiming post
are
traumatic stress disorder faking it or are victims of suggestion by bad
therapists, but simply that wherever possible, it is a good idea to supple
ment the memories of trauma victims with historical research.
personal
One thing I find less than satisfying in the "hard-nosed" approach repre
sented by McNally is its strong animus against Freud and psychoanaly
sis. Even when Freud was his work is of and
wrong, worthy respect
often illuminating. This view may be my own prejudice, but I don't
mind admitting it.
Whatever camp one is in, finally, I think it is important to under
stand that trauma is not a drama of a event, but even
only past also, pri
a drama of survival. This is emphasized in Robert
marily, Jay Lifton's
works on survivors of Hiroshima, Vietnam, and the Holocaust. The sur

vivor, Lifton writes, is "one who has encountered death but remained

alive," and it is this remaining alive that leads to "psychological themes"

that he associates with survival: the inability to move beyond indelible

images of death, guilt about having survived while others died, psychic
numbing, lack of trust in the world, and struggle for meaning. Lifton
out that all these themes can have or conse
points positive negative

quences for the individual: guilt can be paralyzing or else a

"powerful
impetus for while recurrent of death can be
responsibility," images par
as well as a source of creative
alyzing energy (Lifton 1980, 119). What
has been called "the era of the witness" (Wieviorka 2006) is no doubt
proof of that.

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 RUBINSULEIMAN 281

SUSAN RUBINSULEIMANis the C. Douglas Dillon Professor of the Civiliza

tion of France and of literature at Harvard. Her
professor comparative
latest book is Crises ofMemory and the Second World (Harvard University
Press, 2006). Other books include Authoritarian Fictions: The Ideological
Novel as a Literary Genre (Columbia University Press, 1983); Subversive
Intent: Gender, Politics, and the Avant-Garde University Press,
(Harvard

1990); Risking Who One Is: Encounters with Contemporary Art and Literature
(Harvard University Press, 1994); and the memoir Budapest Diary: In
Search of theMotherbook (University of Nebraska Press, 1996).

WORKS
CITED
Herman, 1992-1997. Trauma and Recovery. With a new afterword. New York:
Judith.
Basic Books.
In Survivors,
Lifton, Robert Jay. 1980. "The Concept of the Survivor." Victims, Perpe
trators: Essays on theNazi Holocaust, edited by Joel Dinsdale. Washington: Hemi

sphere Publishing Corp.

Wieviorka, Annette. 2006. The Era of Witness. Trans. Stark. Ithaca: Cornell
Jared
University Press.

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