научная статья по теме Philosophical reflection in restoring a traumatized identity Биология

Текст научной статьи на тему «Philosophical reflection in restoring a traumatized identity»

ФИЛОСОФИЯ PHILOSOPHY

DOI: 10.12731/wsd-2014-9.3-18 UDC 101

PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTION IN RESTORING A TRAUMATIZED IDENTITY

Vavilova Z.E.

The aim of this paper is to examine philosophical reflection as a tool applied to assist individuals in a search for grounds to identify themselves, to grasp who they are and what they are destined to do in this world, especially after surviving a traumatic event. Philosophy is an area whose huge therapeutic potential is often overlooked - potential related to its freedom from excessive scientism, broader horizons in comparison with psychology or sociology, with its critical, rational reason and a well-developed methodology which makes it possible to extrapolate methods from adjacent spheres onto the laws of the development of human consciousness. Thus the paper will attempt to restore the status of philosophy as a human-centered discipline which might help us to grasp the essence of our true selves and to realize that shedding the old, growing the new, returning to the old in the new shape, for instance as a harmless memory - in a constant dialectical flow the human gains a weapon of survival in the world, where not only the other (be it nature, society, enemy or friend), but some parts of oneself may traumatize one.

Keywords: identity; reflection; trauma; philosophy; dialectics; communication; selfness; otherness.

ФИЛОСОФСКАЯ РЕФЛЕКСИЯ В ПРОЦЕССЕ ВОССТАНОВЛЕНИЯ ТРАВМИРОВАННОЙ ИДЕНТИЧНОСТИ

Вавилова Ж.Е.

Целью настоящей работы является изучение философской рефлексии как инструмента самоидентификации индивида в попытке понять, кем он является и каково его предназначение в этом мире, инструмента особенно необходимого в посттравматической ситуации переосмысления идентичности. Философия - это сфера, обладающая солидным терапевтическим потенциалом, что связано с ее свободой от излишнего сциентизма, более широким полем исследования, по сравнению с частными науками, например, психологией и социологией, с ее критичным подходом и рациональным мышлением, а также богатым методологическим инструментарием, позволяющим применять методы смежных наук к изучению законов человеческого сознания. В работе будет предпринята попытка укрепить статус философии как дисциплины, ориентированной на удовлетворение потребностей человека, пытающегося постичь свою суть и осознать, что отбросив старое, перейдя к новому, приняв старое в новой форме, например, безвредных воспоминаний - в постоянном диалектическом потоке он обретает орудие выживания в мире, где не только другой (природа или общество, враг или друг), но и он сам может нанести себе травму.

Ключевые слова: идентичность; рефлексия; травма; философия; диалектика; коммуникация; самость; гетерология.

Only snakes shed their skins in endless Rounds for their souls to refresh.

Humans here bear no resemblance: We remodel souls, but not flesh.

__(Nikolai Gumilev, Memory2)

translated by Zhanna Vavilova

Lacuna, Inc. was an imaginary firm featured in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a science fiction movie by Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman - a place where people could have their distressing memories of the hurtful past erased, as the main characters of the film did, to get over their romantic relationships that proved too hard to carry on with. Reality can offer us neither safe memory erasing technologies nor experience machines providing a person with any thinkable pleasure like the one conceptualized in Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia [1] - or cannot yet; however, humans seem to have methods to withstand the pressures of life, starting from basic defense mechanisms like sleep which enables one to escape the stressful reality, at least for a while, to more sophisticated psychological adaptive techniques analyzed, for instance, in George Vaillant's papers [2]. One area which is often overlooked in this respect is philosophy with its huge therapeutic potential related to its freedom from excessive scientism, broader horizons (in comparison with, say, psychological research) and a well-developed methodology which makes it possible to extrapolate methods from adjacent spheres onto the laws of the development of human consciousness3.

Such features of reality as human existence, the relationship between its past and present, between memory and consciousness, are viewed by the study of being, or ontology. Who am I? What am I? Is it still me as I was ten or twenty years ago? Is it the same me when I am alone and when surrounded by people, when I work and when rest, when I am awake and when asleep, when I am a mother and when a daughter, before the car crash and afterwards? Philosophical reflection helps us to formulate suchlike questions in a search for grounds to identify ourselves and provides us with certain instruments in looking for the answers - for instance, dialectics that will be touched upon further in this paper. It will also look at the reflection upon alien elements in human existence - elements that ought to be survived, with the consequent revelation of those to be kept as the person's core, and at a way in which philosophical

Communication is another remedy for traumatized feelings: from talking to a professional psychoanalyst to "chatotherapy", sharing with others proves extremely helpful -see, for instance, the article Resisting Suicide; Using Semicolons by Mike Smith [3] -though involves a different mechanism: philosophical reflection demands solitude and silence, while communication is a space to scream about one's pain, in a hope to be heard.

reflection may assist one in this challenge - thus endeavoring to disclose the psychotherapeutic potential of philosophy, when by musing over who we are and what we are destined to do we manage to shed what no longer belongs to us and what hinders us from reaching this destination.

In defining what should be left behind as no longer an immanent part of oneself, one can be guided by the concept of trauma, as a suddenly inflicted severe wound, an injury caused to one by an external source. Why trauma? For the reason that when something in one's life is causing discomfort, suffering, pain - be it past relationships, one's own traits of character or even appearance - only then does the person feel an insistent need to change this aspect of his or her existence, to get rid of this discomfort by eliminating its cause.

In the book Trauma: Explorations in Memory Cathy Caruth [4, p. 151] describes post-traumatic stress disorder as a phenomenon in which "the overwhelming events of the past repeatedly possess, in intrusive images and thoughts, the one who has lived through them" - in fact it is a possession by the past immanent to survivors of traumatic events. Analyzing trauma, she states that it is not a simple memory of what the subject has suffered, not just the truth of the experienced, but something more - namely the truth of the event's incomprehensibility. It gives one the capacity to distort the recollections, giving a slightly different story of the past event - perhaps, simply to forget. Hence the notions of trauma and the memory of it are closely related. Having been hurt is inseparable from recollections of this event.

Specialized editions on psychotherapeutic practice provide a profound insight into the problem of surviving the traumatic experience - see, for instance, the abovementioned anthology [4] as well as more recent works [5; 6; 7; 8]. The issues discussed there are mostly of psychopathological nature and can be of special interest to professionals in the field. But what about those whose troubles have not grown to the degree of pathology, though cause considerable suffering? Most of us - it can be argued, everyone4 - have suffered from a

4Even the young Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) who, according to the legend, was carefully shielded by his father from all the commotions and shocks of life, especially from the scenes of human suffering and death, encountered all this on leaving his palace.

traumatic event and need to cope with it after it is over. Slavoj Zizek, a modern philosopher and cultural critic, for instance, views such states as love (erotic, passionate love between humans) as a kind of a traumatic experience, ruining the balance of one's orderly ordinary life, poisonous, violent, terrorizing - "a permanent emergency state" [9], not to mention such attending circumstances or consequences as jealousy, betrayal, divorce, physical separation from the beloved. Of course not everyone will seek for a psychoanalyst to cure these wounds5. Having survived a situation involving any of these factors, one gets to reflect upon the reasons and the possible solutions to minimize the distressing memories, to alleviate the suffering and to prevent this from happening again.

An important facet of trauma relevant for this discussion is its exteriority in relation to the subject - an event triggered by meeting the other in the exterior world. It may be a natural phenomenon (a tiger in the jungle, a tsunami), or a social fact - equally, or even more painful to the one who experienced it: social exclusion, rejection on the part of the beloved, being misunderstood by close relatives, becoming a hostage. It can even be a borderline, socio-natural, phenomenon: falling victim to rape when both one's body and social ego get injured, for instance, or a situation when a person dies naturally, and the feeling of being abandoned strikes the family as a fracture in their ordinary social life.

On the other hand even one's own decisions may result in a traumatic experience. In one of his essays Charles Peirce describes a situation that may serve as an example for such a case: "I have done something of which I am ashamed; could I, by an effort of the will, have resisted the temptation, and done otherwise? The philosophical reply is, that this is not a question

5According to Zizek, marriage advisors aim at explaining people how to find themselves in love without actually falling in

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