“Making Sense in a Senseless World”: Disco Elysium’s Absurd Hero

This article examines the representation of mental health issues in the computer role-playing game Disco Elysium by using Albert Camus’ theory of the absurd as a basis. Through his daily work routine as a detective, the protagonist Harry DuBois’ trauma unfolds through the course of the game while simultaneously revealing the psychosocial aspects of trauma. Interpreting Harry’s existential struggles as those of an absurd hero supports the idea that finding (greater) meaning is not a necessity when coping with trauma.

The Pearl in the Oyster

This chapter considers the phenomenon of posttraumatic growth (PTG) in the context of advanced cancer, drawing upon both theory and empirical research. The concept of PTG refers to improvements that have been postulated to occur in psychological, interpersonal, and spiritual domains as a result of successful coping with trauma. Various theoretical models of PTG are described and compared and the controversy as to whether PTG is a real, observable phenomenon is explored. The chapter specifically considers the unique emergence of PTG in advanced cancer, the measurement tools that have been used, and the methodological challenges of research examining this relationship. Finally, the potential of Managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully (CALM) to promote psychological growth in patients with advanced cancer is explored.

Resonant Recoveries

Resonant Recoveries: French Music and Trauma Between the World Wars illustrates that coping with trauma was a central concern for French musicians active after World War I. The losses and violent warfare of World War I shaped how interwar French musicians—from those fighting in the trenches and working in military hospitals to more well-known musicians—engaged with music. Situated at the intersections of musicology, history, sound and performance studies, and psychology and trauma studies, Resonant Recoveries argues that modernists’ compositions and musical activities were sonorous locations for managing and performing trauma. Through analysis of archival materials, French medical, philosophical, and literary texts, and the music produced between the wars, this book illuminates how music emerged during World War I as an embodied technology of consolation. Resonant Recoveries demonstrates that music making came to be understood by French interwar musicians as a consolatory practice that enhanced their abilities to remember lost loved ones, gave them opportunities to perform their grief publicly and privately, allowed them to create healing bonds of friendship, and soothed them with sonic vibrations and the rhythmically regular bodily movements required in order to perform many French neoclassical compositions. In revealing the importance that music making held for interwar French musicians, this book refigures French modernist music as a therapeutic medium for creators, performers, and audiences, while also underlining the importance of addressing trauma, mourning, and people’s emotional lives in music scholarship.

Symbolic Burials and Grief : Coping with Trauma in the Carpathian Basin’s Neolithic and Copper Age

In the Late Neolithic and Copper Age of the Carpathian Basin, we can find several examples of burials without bodies – symbolic burials. One of the main goals of their creation may have been to give a focal point to funerary rites in cases when a member of the community could not have been laid to rest properly. Thus, we can assume they played a key role in coping with bereavement and trauma. In some cases, the analysis of the finds of symbolic burials provides an opportunity to reconstruct the identities associated with them to a certain degree.

“It felt better to stay quiet”

This article analyzes Kathy Kacer’s Masters of Silence (2019), a novel about Marcel Marceau – the renowned mime artist who during the war cooperated with the French Resistance – and two fictional Jewish siblings struggling with the trauma of losing their parents, anti-Semitism, and the suppression of identity in a Catholic convent in southern France. The author examines the narrative techniques used by Kacer, including the combination of fiction with history and some elements of the biography of Marceau, and demonstrates that she not only shares the next-generation memory of World War II with her young readers but also depicts nonverbal ways of coping with trauma as potentially effective and empowering. Whereas Kacer’s indifference to historical dates may be connected to her determination to portray Marceau as an adolescent role model, the novel is a successful narrative about trauma and the Holocaust history, and the depiction of Marceau’s acts of resistance does not overshadow the young protagonists who do not just quiver and follow the instructions of the adults but mainly try to gain agency.

Breastfeeding Among Mothers Who Have Experienced Childhood Maltreatment: A Review

Background Current breastfeeding recommendations focus on the physical benefits of breastfeeding but do not take into account the influence of a history of childhood maltreatment on mothers’ experiences breastfeeding. A better understanding of this relationship is important to be able to better support mothers during this critical time. Research aim To review current research that examined how women’s personal experiences of childhood maltreatment has affected their breastfeeding outcomes and experiences. Methods A scoping review was conducted to evaluate current literature on breastfeeding and childhood maltreatment. We screened 275 articles, of which eight met the sample selection criteria and were included in this review. These articles were analyzed based on common themes that emerged: Breastfeeding intention, initiation, duration, and exclusivity; medical conditions associated with breastfeeding; and participants’ experiences related to breastfeeding. Results History of childhood maltreatment was associated with decreased and shorter duration of breastfeeding. Participants’ experiences of breastfeeding varied: Some found it empowering, and others experienced great distress while breastfeeding. Challenges during this period included managing touch, struggling with the power differential between providers and participants, and coping with trauma symptoms (e.g., dissociation). Conclusions For some participants, it was possible to breastfeed successfully after childhood maltreatment, but others found the experience extremely difficult, even traumatizing. There is a need for a trauma-informed approach to lactation care for women with a childhood maltreatment history.

Clinical Psychologist in Neuropsychology, 9 years’ experience, UK

This chapter discusses the experience of a Clinical Psychologist who has provided psychological therapy for around one hundred people with Non-Epileptic Attack Disorder (NEAD) over the past five years. The first couple of sessions usually involve the Clinical Psychologist explaining her general understanding of NEAD and tailoring it to the person’s individual experience so that he or she has a personal understanding of what is happening. For some people, an explanation of NEAD being due to trauma and dissociation makes a lot of sense. They can recognize how they learned to automatically dissociate as a way of coping with trauma, and that their attacks are episodes of dissociation. Indeed, their NEAD may be part of wider mental health difficulties, with dissociation happening in response to overwhelming emotional distress. However, many people with NEAD do not find that this explanation makes sense for them. They are often the strong one in their family. They may have had a life with lots of hardship, trauma, and objective “stress,” but they have never felt particularly stressed or overwhelmed; they just got on with it.