Last weekend I attended the Maine Humanities Council’s conference “After Shock: Humanities Perspectives on Trauma.” It was held in Washington DC at the historic Mayflower Hotel. The purpose of the conference was to, from the MHC website, “explore ways in which the humanities—including literature, theater and writing—can support the personal and professional development of health care professionals who work with war veterans and others who have experienced trauma.”
The conference opened with a compelling statement from Erik Jorgensen, the executive director of the MHC. “This is a conference on story, and how it can heal us.”
The thought-provoking opening plenary was by Jonathan Shay, MD, PhD, recipient of a MacArthur genius grant, and author of Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America. His work involves counseling combat veterans, partly through reading and discussing Greek tragedy. In his plenary, Shea discussed the concept of moral injury, which he defined as “a betrayal of what is right by someone in legitimate authority in a high stakes situation.” As a result of moral injury, one’s moral and social horizon shrinks, leading to a berserk state. In a berserk state, the person psychologically damaged by the moral injury seeks to rain down destruction for it’s own sake, with no concern for their own safety. As I listened to Shea, it became clear that this kind of moral injury not only occurs on an individual level, but it seems to occur on a social level as well. As I listened to Shea break down his moral injury definition I did this quick comic in my sketch book. (Click to enlarge, and please excuse the bleed-through.)
“By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened… and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain.”