The Killjoy Comedian: Hannah Gadsby's Nanette

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-85
Author(s):  
SARAH BALKIN
Keyword(s):  
Traumatic Events ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Gender Nonconforming ◽  
The Way

In her 2017 show Nanette, Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby announced that she was quitting comedy. In the show, Gadsby argued that as a marginalized person – a gender-nonconforming lesbian from rural Tasmania – she was doing herself a disservice when she invited audiences to laugh at her trademark self-deprecating humour. Gadsby framed her decision to quit comedy partly as a problem of persona: her practice as a comedian was to take actual, sometimes traumatic, events from her life and turn them into jokes, which she described as ‘half-told stories’. So framed, the problem with Gadsby's comic persona is the way it both presents and truncates her traumatic experience. When she refuses to be funny, Gadsby casts herself as something like Sara Ahmed's ‘feminist killjoy’, a spoilsport figure whose unhappiness positions her as a source of tension. In this article I consider how Gadsby's decision to quit comedy, and the terms in which she articulates that decision in Nanette, can help us think about varied modes of humourlessness and comic possibility.

Rorschach Assessment of Complex Trauma in Youth

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-41
Author(s):  
David Ephraim
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Assessment ◽  
Complex Trauma ◽  
Personality Development ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

Abstract. A history of complex trauma or exposure to multiple traumatic events of an interpersonal nature, such as abuse, neglect, and/or major attachment disruptions, is unfortunately common in youth referred for psychological assessment. The way these adolescents approach the Rorschach task and thematic contents they provide often reflect how such experiences have deeply affected their personality development. This article proposes a shift in perspective in the interpretation of protocols of adolescents who suffered complex trauma with reference to two aspects: (a) the diagnostic relevance of avoidant or emotionally constricted Rorschach protocols that may otherwise appear of little use, and (b) the importance of danger-related thematic contents reflecting the youth’s sense of threat, harm, and vulnerability. Regarding this last aspect, the article reintroduces the Preoccupation with Danger Index ( DI). Two cases are presented to illustrate the approach.

scholarly journals Trauma and Sacrifice in Divided Communities: The Sacralisation of the Victims of Terrorism in Spain

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 104
Author(s):  
Eliana Alemán ◽  
José Pérez-Agote
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
The State ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Institutional Discourse ◽  
Divided Societies ◽  
The Us ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Public Demonstrations ◽  
The Way

This work aims to show that the sacrificial status of the victims of acts of terrorism, such as the 2004 Madrid train bombings (“11-M”) and ETA (Basque Homeland and Liberty) attacks in Spain, is determined by how it is interpreted by the communities affected and the manner in which it is ritually elaborated a posteriori by society and institutionalised by the state. We also explore the way in which the sacralisation of the victim is used in socially and politically divided societies to establish the limits of the pure and the impure in defining the “Us”, which is a subject of dispute. To demonstrate this, we first describe two traumatic events of particular social and political significance (the case of Miguel Ángel Blanco and the 2004 Madrid train bombings). Secondly, we analyse different manifestations of the institutional discourse regarding victims in Spain, examining their representation in legislation, in public demonstrations by associations of victims of terrorism and in commemorative “performances” staged in Spain. We conclude that in societies such as Spain’s, where there exists a polarisation of the definition of the “Us”, the success of cultural and institutional performances oriented towards reparation of the terrorist trauma is precarious. Consequently, the validity of the post-sacrificial narrative centring on the sacred value of human life is ephemeral and thus fails to displace sacrificial narratives in which particularist definitions of the sacred Us predominate.

scholarly journals Trauma as common denominator of sexual violence and victimisation

Temida ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasa Veselinovic
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Sexual Offenders ◽  
Sexual Offender ◽  
The Other ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Treatment Programs ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Victim Empathy ◽  
Behavioural Patterns ◽  
The Way

Results of researches on biological, psychological and sociological characteristics of sexual offenders show etiological and phenomenological differences, while, on the other side, treatment programs show tendency toward unification. Unification that works contains behavioural learning victim empathy work and work on one?s own trauma. In this paper the author looks for an answer to the question who is the sexual offender and how he became that. In theory rapists and paedophiles are similar as much as their victims are, and they are often victims of some traumatic experience which seeks for satisfaction in inappropriate but well-known way. Sexual violence can be stopped by breaking the circle of its beginning and development by helping sexual perpetrator to find the way out from sexual violence circle and healthier behavioural patterns.

scholarly journals Trauma Experiences of African Men from a Refugee Background in Western Australia: A Cross-Sectional Study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Obiechina Nnadigwe ◽  
Colleen Fisher ◽  
Lisa Wood ◽  
Karen Martin.
Keyword(s):  
Western Australia ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Republic Of Congo ◽  
Potentially Traumatic Events ◽  
African Refugee

Abstract Background As people from the African continent continue to settle in Australia, exposure of men from African refugee backgrounds to potentially traumatic events not only impact negatively on their settlement but have also been linked to increased mental health issues and family and domestic violence. This study aims to describe the prevalence and dominant forms of potentially traumatic experiences of African men from a refuge background in Western Australia. Methods Survey data from 421 African men from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Republic of Congo–Brazzaville, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sudan and South Sudan, Burundi and Somalia were analysed using descriptive statistics. Results The study showed that 81% of the participants experienced at least one potentially traumatic event either in their home country or in a refugee country. However, the prevalence of potentially traumatic events in their home country ranged from 45% (Somalia) to 95% (Democratic Republic of Congo) while in refuge countries, the potentially traumatic experience prevalence ranged from 17% (Somalia) to 51% (Sudan and South Sudan). The majority of the participants (64%) experienced "War at close quarter" in their home country. In comparison, the dominant potentially traumatic experience in refuge countries was "Forced Separation" (28%). The study showed that 53% of the participants who experienced one or more potentially traumatic events in their home country also experienced one or more potentially traumatic events in the refugee country. Conclusions This study will provide baseline data on the prevalence and dominant forms of potentially traumatic events of African refugee men now resident in WA. The impact of potentially traumatic events should be addressed in counselling, and other interventions developed and delivered by both government and non-government agencies.

Rape, Victimization, and Agency in Fang Siqi’s Paradise of First Love

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Chu Shen
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Victim Blaming ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Feminist Analysis ◽  
Collective Resistance ◽  
Rape Narratives ◽  
Social Act ◽  
Effective Site ◽  
The Way

Abstract This article undertakes a feminist analysis of rape in the semi-autobiographical novel Fang Siqi’s Paradise of First Love (“房思琪的初恋乐园” / “Fang Siqi de chulian leyuan”) by Taiwanese author Lin Yihan (林奕含). For Siqi, the traumatic experience of rape intertwines with a discourse of love, interpreted as an effort to disavow victimization and claim agency. A major strength of the novel is the way depictions of personal tragedies are accompanied by lucid exposures of rape as a decidedly social act, which shifts the conventional focus of rape narratives from victims to perpetrators and, in so doing, interrogates the victim-blaming culture and places the responsibility on both social factors and individual perpetrators. In the end, the novel identifies women’s bonding and collective resistance as an effective site for hope and agency.

Arctic Carnivalesque: Ethnicity, Gender and Transnationality in the Films of Tommy Wirkola

Films on Ice ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunnar Iversen
Keyword(s):  
Traumatic Events ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Horror Genre ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Ethnicity And Gender ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines the way in which Sámi filmmaker Tommy Wirkola ironically appropriates contemporary Hollywood films such as The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill (2003-4) to create ironic, postmodern genres films that address questions of ethnicity and gender. Iversen examines the way in which Wirkola’s films made in Norway such as Kill Buljo: The Movie (2007) and the ‘Nazi zombie horror splatter comedy’ Dead Snow (2009) appropriate the horror genre to tell stories about traumatic events in Northern Norwegian history -- such as the German invasion during Second World War -- while incorporating visual references to European and Scandinavian art cinema. Iversen also analyses the representations of masculinity in Knut Erik Jensen’s Cool and Crazy (2001).

Twenty-five Years of Trauma Treatment: What Have We Learned?

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-289
Author(s):  
Janina Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Psychological Symptoms ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
Diagnostic System ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Relational Models ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Treatment Models ◽  
Post Traumatic

The concept that traumatic events and subsequent traumatic stress are central to many types of psychological symptoms and difficulties is a relatively new idea in the mental health field. Post-traumatic stress disorder was not included as a condition in any diagnostic system until the DSM-III was published in 1980 (APA, 1980). Over the years, the development of treatment models that could address the consequences of trauma and traumatic attachment, rather than simply the events, has been steadily growing. The advent of brain scan technology and its effect on neuroscience research finally allowed researchers to explain the puzzling and long-lasting effects of traumatic experience. The field of traumatology has grown beyond the early focus on narration of traumatic events to treatment methods informed by an understanding of how overwhelming events and frightened or frightening caregiving leave a legacy of animal defence survival responses that often persist for decades. Incorporating the newer body-oriented and mindfulness-based approaches into the treatment can increase the effectiveness of relational models of psychotherapy with traumatised patients.

scholarly journals The interplay between childhood trauma, cognitive biases, and cannabis use on the risk of psychosis in nonclinical young adults in Poland

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorota Frydecka ◽  
Błażej Misiak ◽  
Kamila Kotowicz ◽  
Renata Pionke ◽  
Martyna Krężołek ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Childhood Trauma ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
Cannabis Use ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Traumatic Experiences ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Background. Childhood traumatic events are risk factors for psychotic-like experiences (PLEs). However, the mechanisms explaining how trauma may contribute to the development of PLEs are not fully understood. In our study, we investigated whether cannabis use and cognitive biases mediate the relationship between early trauma and PLEs. Methods. A total sample of 6,772 young adults (age 26.6 ± 4.7, 2,181 male and 3,433 female) was recruited from the general population to participate in an online survey. We excluded 1,158 individuals due to a self-reported lifetime diagnosis of any mental disorder. The online survey included selected items from the following questionnaires: Traumatic Experience Checklist (TEC, 3 items), Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse Questionnaire (CECA.Q, 3 items), Cannabis Problems Questionnaire (CPQ, 10 items), Davos Assessment of Cognitive Biases Scale (DACOBS-18, 9 items), and Prodromal Questionnaire-16 (PQ-16). Mediation analyses were performed with respect to different categories of traumatic experiences (emotional, physical and sexual abuse as well as emotional neglect). Results. Our results showed significant associations of any time of childhood trauma with higher scores of cannabis use (CPQ), cognitive biases (DACOBS), and PLEs (PQ-16) (p < 0.001). We found a direct effect of childhood trauma on PLEs as well as significant indirect effect mediated through cannabis use and cognitive biases. All models tested for the effects of specific childhood adversities revealed similar results. The percentage of variance in PQ-16 scores explained by serial mediation models varied between 32.8 and 34.2% depending on childhood trauma category. Conclusion. Cannabis use and cognitive biases play an important mediating role in the relationship between childhood traumatic events and the development of PLEs in a nonclinical young adult population.

Questionable validity of ‘dissociative amnesia’ in trauma victims

1998 ◽  
Vol 172 (3) ◽  
pp. 210-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harrison G. Pope ◽  
James I. Hudson ◽  
J. Alexander Bodkin ◽  
Paul Oliva
Keyword(s):  
Prospective Studies ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Traumatic Experiences ◽  
Prospective Data ◽  
Dissociative Amnesia ◽  
Trauma Victims ◽  
Rule Out

BackgroundWe reviewed evidence from prospective studies to test whether individuals can develop amnesia for traumatic experiences, a process variously termed ‘repression’, dissociative amnesia’ or ‘psychogenic amnesia’.MethodUsing specified criteria, we selected and analysed studies which prospectively assessed memory in victims of documented traumatic experiences.ResultsIn studies in which people were asked directly about a past traumatic experience, they consistently reported memories. Non-reporting occurred only in studies where subjects were not asked directly about the experience. This latter design leaves open the well-documented possibility that subjects simply did not disclose events that they actually remembered. Some prospective studies were also limited by incomplete documentation of trauma and failure to rule out other more ordinary causes of amnesia.ConclusionsProspective data as yet fail to demonstrate that individuals can develop dissociative amnesia for traumatic events.

The Science of Rape: (Mis)Constructions of Women's Trauma in Evolutionary Theory

2007 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Zeedyk
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Legal Reform ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Evolutionary Explanation ◽  
Psychological Pain ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Way

The social sciences are witnessing renewed enthusiasm for sociobiological accounts of human behaviour. Feminist theory has, understandably, tended to engage cautiously with biological reasoning, because women have often been poorly served by the politics of such research. It is important, though, that feminists continue to contribute to this literature, in order to challenge problematic discourses that may emerge. The present paper seeks to analyse a domain of sociobiology that has been the focus of recent controversy: an evolutionary explanation of rape. Particular attention is given to the way in which women's traumatic experience of rape is constructed within this framework. It is argued that women's psychological pain is contorted, via the strategies of (a) diminishing women's pain and (b) ignoring their experience altogether. The operation of these two strategies is illuminated, and their practical consequences in the domains of legal reform and the depoliticization of science are evaluated.

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