"The dialectic of trauma gives rise to complicated, sometimes uncanny alterations of consciousness, which George Orwell, one of the committed truth-tellers of our century, called 'doublethink,' and which mental health professionals, searching for calm, precise language, call 'dissociation.'"
Herman asserts that atrocities refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the psychological knowledge that denial does not work. "Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told... 'Murder will out.'"
Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims. An example would be the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
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Meanwhile, those who bear witness to traumas of human design are caught between victim and perpetrator. It is morally impossible to remain neutral.
As Judith Herman asserts: it can be tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. Her or she appeals to the universal desire to see, hear and speak no evil. Perceiving the dilemma of the victim. on the other hand, invites the bystander to share the burden of pain. This itself demands remembering and engagement.
A powerful insight:
"In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens."
Trauma challenges our deepest assumptions about ourselves and our world. As Janoff-Bulman argues in Shattered Assumptions, that at the core of our assumptive world are abstract beliefs about ourselves and the external world. She proposes three fundamental assumptions, which trauma calls into question:
The world is benevolent.
The world is meaningful.
The self is worthy.
Trauma shatters these basic assumptions.
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Herman also discusses stages of recovery. The central task of the first stage is the establishment of safety. The primary task of the second stage is remembrance and mourning. The key task of the third stage is reconnection with ordinary life, since traumatic events destroy the sustaining bonds between individual and community.
As Herman states:
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