Trauma and Research: Bearing Responsibility and Witness

More than fifteen years after its initial publication, Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery remains the standard reference point of trauma studies, providing a common language for endeavors as varied as psychiatric analyses of traumatized individuals, critical examinations of literary representations of trauma, and sociological studies of shared traumatic experiences. Herman clearly stresses the importance of disinterest and neutrality in her work with trauma survivors, describing “disinterest” as “abstain[ing] from using [one’s] personal power over the patient to gratify her personal needs” and “neutrality” as “‘not taking sides’ in the patient’s inner conflicts or try[ing] to direct the patient’s life decisions” (1992, 135). Note that these definitions say nothing about the need for emotional disinterest or moral neutrality. Rather, they require that a distinction be carefully made between emotionally and morally laden interactions, that is, those related to inner conflicts and life decisions, and emotionally and morally driven actions, such as gratifying personal needs, taking sides, or directing decisions.

In fact, Herman emphasizes the importance of emotional and ethical engagement—a sense of empathy and a “committed moral stance”—insisting that “it is not enough for the therapist to be ‘neutral’ or ‘nonjudgmental.’ . . . The therapist’s role is . . . to affirm a position of moral solidarity with the survivor” (178). And yet Herman is also acutely aware of how uneasily such sentiments sit in certain scientific circles: “Early investigators often felt strong personal bonds and political solidarity with trauma survivors, regarding them less as objects of dispassionate curiosity than as collaborators in a shared cause. This kind of closeness and mutuality may be difficult to sustain in a scientific culture where unbiased observation is often thought to require a distant and impersonal stance” (240). Indeed, investigators who emotionally and ethically engage with their research—interviewers who experience and express “strong personal bonds and political solidarity” with their subjects—will likely often be seen as veering dangerously close to the boundary between social science and social work.

Thinking about this tension while reflecting upon early research encounters of my own of which I am particularly not proud, I cannot help but question the appropriateness of “unbiased observation” in trauma research. Two brief examples come immediately to mind. The first involves a young boy who repeatedly beat his head against the seat of the couch as I asked him, repeatedly, about past victimization by his parents. Although I knew that the upsetting nature of my interview was directly implicated in this boy’s distress, I neither stopped the interview nor stepped outside the role of the interviewer. When the interview’s results later showed suicide ideation, my supervisor expressed deep concern for the research project, not the research subject—“If the kid offs himself, we’ll lose the data!”

The second example involves a rape crisis counselor who spoke extensively of her own history of sexual violence and then suddenly said, “OK, welcome to the Rebecca¹-shares-too-much section,” and divulged her plans to engage in sex work the following night. Although I knew that the intimate nature of my interview was directly implicated in this disclosure, again, I neither stopped the interview nor stepped outside the role of the interviewer. When Rebecca called me late the next night from a hospital emergency room—“Things didn’t end well”—I found myself immediately back in interviewer mode; my field notes read: “I’m detached, impartial, ‘clinical’ on the phone. Typing on laptop at first, but soon began to write instead by hand—worried she might hear the keys. Imagine if she knew I was taking notes. . . .”

When I am honest with myself now, I admit that these were times when I hid behind the scientifically sanctioned borders of emotional and ethical disengagement. I took refuge in the role of the researcher and prioritized the research results over the research subjects themselves. But in protecting the research methods and the projects’ data, I also put the individual victims at greater risk.

Interviewed in 1996 about the danger of retraumatization through testimony, Herman maintained, “Anyone showing interest and providing an opportunity for someone to tell...