\u201cTraumatic wounds are by definition\nunspeakable. Yet from the earliest of literature, we find tales of primal\ntrauma which tell of a certain catharsis through storytelling and touch. And we\nwitness a special role played in such tales by figures called ‘wounded healers<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard\nKearney admits that is very difficult to ‘interpret’ certain traumas. It\nappears as if these wounds cannot be expressed in language, that it is beyond\nwords and certainly beyond meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nis interested in the paradox of ‘telling the untellable,’ or as I\u2019ve put it\nbefore, exploring the \u201cunsaid\u201d. His basic theory is that while traumatic wounds\ncannot be cured, they can at times be healed-and that such healing may take\nplace through a twin therapy of narrative catharsis (the telling of stories)\nand carnal working-through (the embodied\nsensing of meaning<\/em> ~ according to my \nmodel of theological anthropology). \u201cIn\nshort, healing by word-touch. A double transformation of incurable wounds into\nhealable scars<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nGreek mythology, there are the sagas of the wounded healers Odysseus, Oedipus,\nand Chiron. The name Odysseus means ‘bearer of pain’ and in Homer\u2019s poem it is\nrevealed that he is carrying wounds both suffered and inflicted by his\nancestors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nword Homer uses for ‘scar’ is a term often associated in Greek literature with\n‘trauma\u2019. \u201cWhile the wound is timeless, the scar appears in time: It is a\ncarnal trace which can change and alter over time though it never disappears.\nScars are written on the body; they are forms of proto-writing. And narrative\ncatharsis is a process of working through such carnal traces. Put simply: While\nthe wounds remain timeless and non-representable, scars are the marks left on\nthe flesh to be seen and touched, told and read. Scars are engraved wounds that\nmay, or may not, be healed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Narrative catharsis is the distilling of pathological pity into compassion and of pathological fear into serenity. Compassion spells a proper way of being ‘near ‘ to pain; serenity a proper way of remaining ‘far ‘ from it (keeping a healthy distance, as we say, lest we over-identify or fuse with the other’s pain). Purged emotions lead to practical wisdom”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note:\nThis is a discussion of Richard Kearney\u2019s chapter, \u201cThe hermeneutics of wounds\u201d\nin the 2018 book \u201cUnconscious Incarnations: Psychoanalytical and Philosophical\nPerspectives of the Body\u201d, edited by Brian W Becker, John Panteleimon\nManoussakis, and David M Goodman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cTraumatic wounds are by definition unspeakable. Yet from the earliest of literature, we find tales of primal trauma which tell of a certain catharsis through storytelling and touch. And we witness a special role played in such tales by figures called ‘wounded healers.\u201d Richard Kearney admits that is very difficult to ‘interpret’ certain traumas. It …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":392,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions\/392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}