Narrative workshop
Posted on January 31, 2019 Leave a Comment
We will be running a narrative workshop on 15 February at the University of Nottingham. The workshop is for people interested in narrative generally and the use of narrative in the healing of trauma and similar problems specifically. The workshop will introduce participants to both post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and narrative and provide practice in using Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) and a new technique we are developing called the Narrative Life Interview (NLI). There will also be an opportunity to think about analysing a narrative interview.
The workshop will be run by one of my PhD students, Shruti Raghuraman, who has been using narrative techniques in India with people who have been abused. The workshop will be of benefit not just to people who are interested in using NET or the NLI, but anyone interested in narrative and interviewing generally.
The workshop is free to students at the University of Nottingham, but if you are interested in us running a similar workshop elsewhere then please contact me to find out details of costs, etc. It is adaptable to suit different needs.
National Storytelling week
Posted on January 30, 2019 Leave a Comment
It is national storytelling week. See: https://www.awarenessdays.com/awareness-days-calendar/national-storytelling-week-2019/. The Society for Storytelling is promoting its mission regarding the promotion of the oral tradition of storytelling, which was the original (?) way in which linguistically competent humans would communicate sophisticated information to each other. In the modern world that oral tradition has been lost. We rarely practice our storytelling abilities with each other, preferring instead to use the written word, books, articles, blogs (ahem!) and so on, or structured oral expression such as lectures. Our oral storytelling abilities are now largely limited to talking to each other in cafes and pubs about things that have happened to us recently – which usually isn’t real storytelling but sharing fragments of our lives with friends and colleagues.
The oral tradition involved storytellers, professional or amateur, collecting stories of events, news items, myths, and so on, who would visit a town or village and relate those sophisticated stories to their audience. They then moved on to another town or village and do the same thing. The skills required of the storyteller were considerable. Not only did they have to be interesting speakers who could project their voices across perhaps large audiences, they had astounding memories that they could recall at will, in order, and in detail. How did the people of England find out about Henry V’s victory at Agincourt? Or the invasion of William the Bastard? Most people could not read. There were no newspapers, TV, radio or internet, so the country relied on storytellers (of course, many stories would grow through the telling and retelling).
We rarely practice our memories for the oral tradition. As a lecturer I am as guilty as so many others in preparing detailed PowerPoint presentations, the information on the slides acting as aides de memoire for the detail of what I want to say. This was different even when I was an undergraduate in the 1980s. Most lecturers then would write a few key words on the board and build a lecture around these key words, ie they had to have memories for the structure and plot of the lecture.
In recent years memory has become significantly less important, with Google information on tap – literally, tapping a smartphone keyboard and getting instant information. It will be interesting to observe how and if people retain their mnemonic skills in the future.
Storytelling, or narrative, is about many things. One important factor is coherence. A story must have a chronology, a plot, characters, structure, and so on. These fit together using a series of rules and when these rules are applied accurately they produce a good coherent story. We are all storytellers and story listeners. It is one of the fundamental things that makes us human. In our research into traumatic stress we make use of the stories people tell in order to make sense of what has happened to them. Typically, if someone experiences a traumatic event, this impacts significantly on their life story, it disrupts the story, makes it less coherent, ‘ruins the plot’, and ceases to make sense. A life story must make sense so the purpose of enabling recovery from trauma is to restructure the life story, to regain the plot and make it coherent. It doesn’t matter whether this is carried out via a therapist, writing about one’s experiences, talking to friends, or just thinking about it, the life story needs to make sense, to have meaning.
This is why national storytelling week is important. It is a reminder that we all function by telling stories and listening to them. They may not be as sophisticated as those told in the distant oral tradition, but they are still what makes us human. Perhaps we should spend less time with Google and its fragmented facts and more time constructing stories.
Trauma and the First World War
Posted on January 25, 2019 Leave a Comment
We are currently embarking on a further round of our AHRC-funded research into the First World War. Further information can be found at the Centre for Hidden Histories website (http://hiddenhistorieswwi.ac.uk/). We are conducting a series of workshops around the country (Birmingham, Omagh, Cardiff and Glasgow) to encourage local groups interested in history to develop projects to explore aspects of the psychological consequences of the First World War.
There has been a lot of work among local groups, amateur and professional historians and others regarding the First World War over the last few years of the centenary; but the war did not end on 11 November 1918. Apart from the war itself continuing in Russia and eastern Europe until 1922 the impact of the war lasted for many years. Soldiers, doctors and nurses who came home from the fighting were significantly affected by their experiences. Many were traumatised by their experiences and could not easily either forget what happened or deal with the transition to civilian life. There are many stories of the problems people faced, some were unable to work due to an inability to concentrate on tasks, others became violent with their families, some had to be kept in asylums for many years (some were still incarcerated in the 1960s) – and some used ‘shell shock’ or some similar reason as mitigation for committing crimes. We should also not forget those who stayed at home and had to adapt to very different circumstances, whether it was a ‘stranger’ coming back to the home or women who had to give up their jobs.
Information about the longer term effects of the war on those who took part and on the community as a whole can be found from a number of sources. Local newspapers have a lot of information, local and national archives in museums and libraries can help, older people may have memories of people they knew when they were younger who told them about life in the 1920s. There are also books and films about the period, whether created by participants or others they are information about the period.
We are encouraging local groups to conduct research into their local area, whether it is about specific individuals who were involved, or just about life in their town or village after the war. We are inviting people to participate in our workshops, which take place:
23 March Birmingham
22 May Omagh
5-6 July Cardiff
30-31 August Glasgow
We do not have full details of the events, but if you are interested in receiving further information once it is available, then please e-mail me.
Landscapes of Trauma
Posted on February 18, 2018 Leave a Comment
I have been writing this book now for about a year and a half. I wish I had the freedom to just sit and write rather than have to do it on top of a full time job, but knowing how little money authors earn I think I will stick with the full time job for the moment.
This book is – in a way – a follow up from Memory, War and Trauma (CUP, 2010), taking the exploration of the impact of war in a somewhat different direction, but retaining the importance of using a breadth of methods to try and understand war, to draw on a range of perspectives and disciplines to further develop the psychology of war, and what happens to people who go through war.
The book has an unusual perspective in that it uses data from a variety of sources, not just psychological methods, but historical data, extracts from journals and diaries, and even novels. I do not claim that psychologists have a monopoly of understanding human thought, feeling and behaviour, so no doubt I will upset many psychologists. The other unusual perspective is that I claim that we can better understand battle by following in the footsteps of those who fought, that is, exploring the battlefields of the past, whether by foot or by car.
For instance, there is a chapter on the Battle of Sedan. A tour of the battle area is given. This is one that it is better to have the use of a car due to the size of the battlefield, though there are also good places to walk. The key data is provided by Emile Zola’s Le Debacle, the penultimate Rougon Macquart novel, set during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Zola conducted his research for the novel by exploring the sites of the battle (as I do in the chapter) and by interviewing participants and spectators – the book came out around 20 years after the end of the war. Zola is a good observer of human behaviour, and drawing on quotations from the book we can begin to understand something of the experiences of the French soldiers who took part in the battle immediately after having marched for several weeks backwards and forwards around eastern France, unable to find the enemy.
For the Battle of Salamanca in 1812 I draw on the accounts written by the foot soldiers who took part, who describe their experiences of the battle in some detail. The battle site just south of the city is very similar to how it would have been in 1812, and is simple to walk or drive around.
I do draw on psychological data for the Battle of Normandy, as I personally interviewed 100s of participants of that battle. The problem here is the scale of the battle, with a width of around 100km and a variable depth up to 60km it is impossible to explore the whole battlefield, so I have focused on the area where the British paratroopers of the 6th Armoured Division landed on the night of 5/6th June.
I have attempted to go back in time as far as the 100 Years’ War, with the battles of Crecy (1346) and Agincourt (1415) but it is very difficult to get any psychological understanding of these battles. It is in these cases that I start to explore the modern interpretation of the battles, looking at what we have put up as memorials, or how the different sides interpret the battles and how they were fought.
It all adds to the mix of understanding the landscapes of trauma.
I have anotehr 6 months or so before the book is due to be submitted. Most of it is written in some form or other, though mostly very messy. I will return to the topic later for updates.
Annual Blog?
Posted on November 15, 2017 Leave a Comment
I really should try harder at blogging. I have only just noticed that my last blog was added nearly a year ago. How do people do it? How do they add blogs most days or even weekly. Promise to self – must try harder.
In the coming weeks I will begin to update where I am with my book, Landscapes of Trauma (the deadline approaches – September 2019), with research, and so on.
I have spent several weeks away researching and writing the book, and the last trip – to somewhere near Sedan – was particularly productive. I could say this is not the end, nor is it the beginning of the end, but it might be the end of the beginning of writing it. I churned out around 20,000 words in a week. That sounds a lot, but there is no real suggestion that they are in the right order, or that they are the right words. Time will tell. I currently plan to have a draft of the whole book ready for early summer, when we will spend a few weeks in the south of France, where I will get up early every day, sit at my desk looking over the landscape of Provence, be very productive for four hours, go and eat outside, perhaps with a glass of rose (no, skip that if I want to get back to writing), and then a short walk followed by a siesta. In the early evening, I will sit under the shade and write for another couple of hours before eating my evening meal and sharing a glass or two of the red.
And then the book will be finished.
It is good to dream of productivity.
Dr Nigel Hunt 