IN THIS extremely timely book, Karen O’Donnell (Theology Matters, 28 March) sets out how she understands the challenges facing a survivor of trauma. To survive, we need to be safe from traumatic threat, to engage bodily with its consequences, to have witnesses to our trauma narrative, and to reconnect with others and overcome the isolation that is often a trauma’s consequence.
O’Donnell warns against the idea of being healed of trauma, and sees the constant task of remaking the self at the heart of survival. She suggests eight practices that are designed to help with precisely this remaking.
Some will find her first suggested practice of “unforgiveness” to be deeply shocking, others will be puzzled that a Christian could even suggest that forgiveness isn’t always a good thing, but others, such as this reviewer, will find it an entirely apt and deeply liberating place to start. Forgiveness has been overplayed in Christianity, and it is those who have survived trauma who most need to be assured that no one needs to feel bad for not forgiving the unforgivable.
O’Donnell also encourages trauma survivors to “embrace anger”, “acknowledge hopelessness”, “engage in deconstruction”, and “take some action”. Other practices more obviously focus on the body. O’Donnell advises “eating good food”, “taking rest”, and “enjoying bodily pleasure”. Underlying all this is her conviction that talk-based therapy is never enough after trauma, because, as Bessel Van der Kolk has argued in a book of that title, “The body keeps the score.”
Clearly, O’Donnell’s list of eight is not exhaustive, and another author might have had more on art or music therapy, ecstatic dance, or conscious movement, and less about “deconstruction” or “mindful masturbation”. But the overall point is well made. Trauma goes deep, and radical, sometimes uncomfortable, steps are vital to recovery. Survival involves going off-piste.
Survival puts into the hands of trauma survivors, and those who care about and for them, a neat summary of the impact of trauma and some creative practical possibilities to assist with remaking the self.
Despite the intractable nature of the subject that it addresses, and because of its earthy realism, this is a book of consolation and hope, and a very positive and necessary step towards an adequate post-traumatic pastoral and practical theology. It also offers new liturgical content for the apparently empty day of Holy Saturday.
Ancient traditions speak of Christ harrowing hell and releasing all his forebears from the depths of Hades. Trauma theology reflects this in seeing that the response to trauma is not adequately summarised by a bright Easter dawn, but requires a slow an unpredictable process of tentative and sometimes risky remaking, and a patient and holistic resurrection.
The Revd Dr Stephen Cherry is Dean of Chapel at King’s College, Cambridge.
Survival: Radical spiritual practices for trauma survivors
Karen O’Donnell
SCM Press £19.99
(978-0-334-06503-6)
Church Times Bookshop £15.99