Healing Invisible Wounds: Paths to Hope and Recovery in a Violent World

2. The Trauma Story

P HILOCTETES serves as a metaphor for the essential reality of the trauma survivor and his or her story. It is the genius of Sophocles that more than two thousand years ago he wrote a drama that still speaks directly to the enigma of our experience of personal and collective violence.1 The play ponders the fate of every traumatized person: how can we survive and be made whole again once terrible events place us in painful and unpredictable circumstances and our society either ignores or abandons us? Philoctetes, the great friend of the deceased Hercules, is wounded by a sacred serpent sent by Hera, causing an incurable injury and unbearable suffering. Hera’s purpose is to keep the Greeks from winning the Trojan War by using Hercules’s magic bow, which had been given to Philoctetes by Hercules upon his deathbed. Instead of being aided in his injury and pain by his fellow Greeks, Philoctetes is abandoned to the isolated Aegean island of Lemnos. No one listens to his wails of sorrow, which hides the fact that only the bow of Hercules, possessed by Philoctetes, can save the Greeks and end the Chapter 2 Trojan War. After nine years of futile battle, the Greeks finally seek out the hero they abandoned on Lemnos in order to find their salvation . As Odysseus states, “Only his bow captures Troy.”2 Odysseus tries to convince the son of Achilles, Neoptolemus, to lie to Philoctetes in order to steal his bow. Fortunately, Neoptolemus’s compassion for Philoctetes spoils Odysseus’s plot. This young man cannot betray his father’s friend in the face of his suffering. Because of the boy’s honesty, the play’s secret truth is revealed: The bow is worthless without the survivor. Only Philoctetes can shoot it. Too often, modern-day listeners try to “steal” the “bow” of the trauma story without realizing that its true meaning cannot be revealed without the participation of the survivor. The Philoctetes story is not only about possessing the bow, but about being able to use it. In the case of the trauma survivor, the bow is the full story. Only by listening to the survivor tell the story can the bow’s arrows be released and, in the process, the victim and even society can be healed. Though tellers of trauma stories have layers of knowledge and wisdom to pass along, therapists and theorists tend to focus on the trauma story separate from the teller, in essence saying, “We have the story; we do not need to know the concrete personal realities of the storyteller.” historical purpose of the trauma story The trauma story is everywhere. On a given day, try to notice what is being shared by our spouses, relatives, friends, workmates, the media, and from the pulpits of our religious institutions. Usually these stories are very brief, presented in small bits and pieces; sometimes a reaction is solicited and often no response at all is expected. In any small gathering you can find people who have encountered a Healing Invisible Wounds 35 devastating divorce, sexual abuse, a life-threatening illness, or the loss of a loved one to accident or crime. No one is immune. Emotionally disturbing events happen not only during times of war, terrorism , and ethnic conflict. Out of our need for healing and survival, human beings have developed a complex array of physical and psychological responses that include language and communication. The latter warn us that dangerous things are happening and that there are ways to cope with and react to the threat. The trauma story can be seen as early in human history as the Upper Paleolithic period cave paintings in France. In Les Trois Freres, a large dancing wizard displays the horns and ears of a deer, the eyes and face of an owl, the beard and body of a man, and the tail of a horse. It can be assumed that this special human being of great supernatural powers was able to protect the people who drew his image from inhospitable weather, lack of food, and aggressive animals. In Egypt’s nineteenth dynasty (1314–1650 B.C.) demons appear in the Amduat (or The Book of That Which Is in the World Beyond the Grave).3 These demons represent cruel and malignant forces that can possess and destroy a person and his community. Such early artworks tell of humanity’s concern for...