Geeky, yes, but interesting, especially for those interested in psychology and literary theory.
Here is the intro to the first installment.
The concept of psycho-trauma has gained widespread currency in literary theory in recent years. Yet what might be sign of hope for a more interdisciplinary approach to psycho-trauma on closer inspection turns out to be ambiguous, according Harald Weilnböck. Literary theory, he writes, often distorts what psycho-trauma means in clinical terms and, while gaining interdisciplinary cachet, repeats patterns of self-protection and transference. In the first instalment of this long and thought-provoking essay, the fictional Dr Goodheart puzzles over Manfred Weinberg's assertion that "trauma must remain inaccessible to memory". Such statements contradict Dr Goodheart's clinical experience that enabling patients to access their memory is essential to successful therapy. Reading Elisabeth Bronfen's essay on Hitchcock's Marnie, Dr Goodheart's consternation grows. Bronfen, he suspects, romanticises psycho-trauma in order to provoke the given gender order and, in linking trauma with pleasure, implicitly licences the acting out of destructive patterns of interaction.
And here is the first section, which sets up the issue Weilnböck wishes to tackle in this essay.
For what's worth, I have experience in both domains -- psychology and literary criticism -- so I found this series particularly interesting. And I tend to agree with Weilnböck that most literary theorists who dabble in psychology fail to really understand the nature of what they have appropriated, or worse, willfully ignore the psychological truth as they twist the terms or concepts to fit into their theories.
I
The relationship between the humanities on the one hand and psychology and psychoanalysis on the other has always been tense. In Germany, this was already the case in the 1970s, when literary criticism experienced a fleeting phase of interest in psychoanalysis. Since then, both fields have changed a great deal. Literary criticism has come to feel increasingly awkward about the psychoanalytical – and sometimes "revolutionary" – adventures of some of its representatives in those days. Consequently, the humanities mainstream has since clearly opted to restrict its theoretical and interdisciplinary ambitions and to return to doing "pure" literary criticism, in other words, to pursuing the formal and historical study of textual corpora in ways not so different than those before the 1960s (Erhart). SerialThe fields of psychology and psychoanalysis, however, have made quite some progress, especially in the developmental psychology of early childhood; attachment theory; relational and systemic approaches and approaches that illuminate intergenerational transference effects; research in borderline and psychotic disorders; empirical psychotherapy studies; and clinical psycho-trauma studies. This impressive scientific development sheds new light on how human interaction and development and – by implication – socio-cultural exchange functions (Weilnböck 2006 b, c).
While humanities has by and large not taken part in or even taken note of these developments, there are a number of individuals who still make use of psychoanalytical concepts. Above all, it is the concept of psycho-trauma that has become almost fashionable in recent years, even among literary scholars whom one would least suspect of an interest in psychoanalytical perspectives.[1] Thus, "trauma" has turned into a sort of buzzword for a small and heterogeneous group of literary critics. This, however, is not what it might seem: a sign of hope for more interdisciplinary approach. On the contrary: closer inspection reveals that this interest in trauma turns out to be a rather ambiguous phenomenon. Many of these uses are erroneous and paradoxical, distorting what psycho-trauma means in clinical terms, how it really affects individuals and society, and how best to research it. Moreover, these approaches use trauma – and in most cases even "The Trauma" – in a way that in the long run will exacerbate rather than alleviate the lack of interdisciplinary exchange between literary theory and psychology/psychoanalysis.
The main reason for this methodical yet mostly unconscious distortion of "trauma", as with any other interdisciplinary concept, is the strength of literary criticism's basic ideological belief system. Psychological concepts are appropriated, modified, and in many cases inverted in order to support rather than dissolve interpretative habits and/or cultural prejudices. These interpretative habits – for a multitude of historical and, in individual cases, biographical reasons – are of great institutional importance in the self-understanding of literary criticism. In fact, an interdisciplinary exchange with psychology is not really meant to happen, nor can it. As I shall try to demonstrate, even under circumstances of utmost mutual goodwill, interdisciplinary communication based on concepts of psycho-trauma as defined by the humanities falls short of the standards of serious interdisciplinary exchange.
More precisely, very few clinical psycho-therapists will be able to understand what most humanities scholars who speak about trauma really mean by that term; the closer the clinician looks at what humanities scholars say about trauma, the stranger it will seem – to the point of being nonsensical. The clinician will also wonder why literary scholars engage in paradox and aporetic forms of thought when it comes to (empirical) issues of human suffering. In turn, most literary scholars will not be able to explain to the psychologist why the humanities' concept of psycho-trauma is so incompatible with clinical concepts. In fact, they will most likely not even agree with this observation and fail to see the paradox, so that the dialogue will simply end in mutual incomprehension.
Hardly anybody realises this because literary scholars and psycho-trauma clinicians do not talk to each other much anyway – in general, academia, as it is organised at present, is to a large degree built on not having serious interdisciplinary exchange. In the few instances where clinicians might look into what literary scholars mean when they refer to psycho-trauma issues, the clinician would probably refrain from protesting too much, feeling that he or she is not really knowledgeable enough to pass judgement on issues of aesthetics, culture, and history. At any rate, the clinician will probably be polite enough not to voice his puzzlement too loudly, since high art, culture, literature and those who study it still appear worthy of a special kind of respect. This often has the effect that literary scholars feel exempt from the general rules of rational, transparent, and interdisciplinary argument, while the clinician, conversely, refrains from being as rigorous in his or her critique as might otherwise be appropriate. Thus, hopes for the future of interdisciplinary discourse between literary and psychological studies – despite the abundant lip service paid to it – seem to be rather dim.
Here are the links to the whole series:
"The trauma must remain inaccessible to memory" Part I
"The trauma must remain inaccessible to memory" Part II
"The trauma must remain inaccessible to memory" Part III
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