Main description:

Pandemics, global climate chaos, worldwide migration crises? These phenomena are provoking traumatic experiences in unprecedented ways and numbers. This book is targeted for clinicians, scientists, cultural theorists, and other scholars and students of trauma studies interested in cultivating interdisciplinary understandings of trauma and posttraumatic conditions, especially resistance, resilience, and posttraumatic growth. Following clinicians' invitation for trauma survivors to wear a philosopher's hat, to engage in creative activities, and to employ cognitive exercises to combat psychic constriction, I introduce the concept of a Literary Arts Praxis. The Praxis is built on clinical research and literature seeped in existential, phenomenological, and aesthetic themes. I argue that an educational training in a Praxis might help trauma survivors to get at trauma, as they engage in imaginative escapades, while forging alliances with characters; interpretative exercises, such as triggering emotions through phenomenological experiences; and creative writing endeavors, that include turning testimonies into imaginative stories.

Contents:

Introduction: Pedagogy, Trauma, and Posttraumatic Growth, Part I: An Evolution of Key Concepts and Terms, Chapter I: Embryonic Concepts of Trauma and Traumatism from the Humanities, Chapter II: The Birth of the Terms Trauma and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Part II: A Gallery of Trauma Studies, Chapter III: Landscapes of Contemporary Scientific Trauma Theories, Chapter IV: A Portrait of Cultural Trauma Studies, Part III: Treatments and Educations for Trauma Survivors, Chapter V: Clinical Treatments for Posttraumatic Conditions, Chapter VI: Metamorphoses of the Mind and a Literary Arts Praxis, Part IV: Engaging in a Literary Arts Praxis and World Literature, Introduction to Part IV: The Foreign and Familiar of World Literature, Chapter VII: The Trauma of Aging and Reading Adventures with Miguel de Cervantes, Chapter VIII: The Trauma of a Plague and Creative Writing Exercises with Albert Camus, Chapter IX: Childhood Trauma and Imaginative Escapades with Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, Conclusion: Summing up and Sailing forward