Signifying Pain Chapter One

Chapter 1: The Healing Effects of Writing about Pain: Literature and Psychoanalysis

I am struggling with some of the truth in this chapter. Not because I presume to argue the point or suggest that Harris is not presenting a valid argument. On the contrary. I am resistant because I know it is true and yet I am powerless to help someone I know to see the truth.

"Some people are compelled to repeat what is most painful and, yet, what is not remembered" (32).

What do you do when someone you care about repeats these mistakes? What if they are not ignorant but very well aware of the truth, of the past that is not forgotten but clearly remembered? What if they even wrote about the trauma and yet return to it, time and time again?

Nothing. You listen. You wait. You hope. What more can you do? I keep returning to this idea of detachment. That is what I suggested was true about the relationship between the writer and reader, that there is a certain awareness, a detachment even, that the reader carries. The writer is clearly a survivor. If not, the words would not be on the page, not published, not dissimulated. Although there are memoirs that come to mind by writers who do not, in fact, survive, these are the exceptions to the over all rule.

When I hold your words in my hand I know that no matter how painful these words may be you survived and were strong enough to write about what you survived. What I don't know is if I am strong enough to read the memories.

Victims and survivors of political oppression or domestic abuse exorcise their pain through art, confession, or testimony. Because art demands a certain amount of detachment (even if this detachment is subordinated to the exigency of communicating something meaningful in the rendering of qualitative elements), artistic activity perhaps accelerates the therapeutic process (31).

The truth is, I know this is true, that writing/verbalizing trauma does accelerate the therapeutic process. I also am not so naïve as to believe that anyone can take pen to paper and heal their psychic and emotional wounds. There are times when professional help is necessary.

I am beginning to wonder how to know when this is true, when it is not enough to write in a journal but time to find someone objective and educated in the ways of healing. How do we know when we have dug deeply enough, have reenacted the trauma, and are now ready to move beyond to something integrated and meaningful (13)?

I don't know.

I don't know and this whole chapter is about confessional writing and all I can confess is I don't know. I went to a doctor today and he didn't know why I have vertigo. I don't say to my friend what I think I know is best because I don't know what is best and I don't know how to tell her that yes, writing helps and heals but sometimes a person needs more; that you need more. I don't know.

I know I started writing this blog to be both objective and personal. I thought I would respond to what I was reading in an objective manner, I would compare and contrast, I would insert my subjective experience, and would ultimately focus on the how, the way, the rational. I thought that personal responses like this would not be applied to what I was reading but more to what I was experiencing, perhaps even writing myself, writing my way into some surprising epiphany or enlightenment.

Instead, this chapter reinforces how frustrating it is for me to know someone I care about has confessed but not found clarity. Instead, I find myself confessing that I feel inadequate to the responsibilities implied in my own healing. And instead I confess something that I cannot confess to this other person-words are not always enough. Sometimes, you need to go beyond your self because others can see things, have an objective perception, which makes it easier to fully comprehend what's really going on and show you the way to go.

I cannot.

"In fact, the words confessor and confesser are, by definition, interchangeable for there is a mutual identification between the priest who lifts the burden of the "sins" and the sufferer who expels it through a reciprocal relationship of transference and forgiveness. The confessional poet or writer has acquired the power of articulation to amend or confess the past. But "sin" and suffering also may be accompanied by blame. Where does guilt end and suffering begin? How is the intensification of the memory diluted by a conscious awareness that the past is merely a reflection, not an actuality of the present?" (23)