Reviews
The Trauma Trap
McNally’s title Remembering Trauma neatly encapsulates the opposing views that, for a whole generation now, have made the study of trauma into psychology’s most fiercely contested ground. Are scarring experiences well remembered in the usual sense of the term, or can some of them be remembered only much later, after the grip of a self-protective psychological mechanism has been relaxed? Read more.
The Trauma Society
May 19, 2003
One of the most critical–and overlooked–questions that McNally addresses is disarmingly simple: what counts as trauma? Some traumatologists believe that a trauma should be defined as whatever traumatizes a person. McNally rejects this circular approach. True, a person might feel “traumatized” by, say, a minor car accident–but to say that a fender-bender counts as trauma alongside such horrors as concentration camps, rape, or the Bataan Death March is to dilute the concept to the point of meaninglessness. Read more.