Table Of ContentTrauma, the Body and Transformation
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of related interest
Narrative Approaches to Working with Adult Male Survivors
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Trauma, the Body
and Transformation
A Narrative Inquiry
Edited by Kim Etherington
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and New York
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form
(including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether
or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the
written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by
the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, England
W1P 9HE. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any
part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.
Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work may result
in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.
The right of the authors to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by
them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2003
by Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd
116 Pentonville Road
London N1 9JB, England
and
29 West 35th Street, 10th fl.
New York, NY 10001-2299, USA
www.jkp.com
Copyright ©2003 Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 1 84310 106 8
Printed and Bound in Great Britain by
Athenaeum Press, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
Contents
Dedication 7
Acknowledgements 8
Introduction 9
Kim Etherington, University of Bristol
1. Trauma, the Body and Transformation 22
Kim Etherington
2. All That You Make 39
Carole Mandeville, Counsellor and Writer
3. Angels Nesting in the Mind 52
Ruth L. Barnett, Psychotherapist
4. Stars in a Midnight Sky 65
Indu Khurana, Personal Development Practitioner
5. Journey of a Lifetime 77
Ginny Mayhew, Counsellor
6. Pretending To Be Me 94
Heather Weston, Community Counselling Service, North Somerset
7. Pain in Paradise: Healing in the Tao 107
Michael Wai Hin Len, Psychological-Pastoral Consultant
8. Around the Slices of Herself 121
Gillie Bolton, King’s College, London
9. From the Ashes 138
Matt Valentine, Counsellor, Therapist and Healer
10. The Silence of Somatisation 152
Jackie Kneeshaw, Counsellor
11. Guardian Angel’s Story 165
Kim Etherington
12. The Weaver’s Tale: Yarns and Threads 179
Kim Etherington
The Contributors 198
Subject Index 200
Author Index 208
This book is dedicated with love and thanks
to my dear friends Gillian and Mike Barry,
who have always held my body, mind and spirit
gently in their caring hands.
Acknowledgements
Thecreationofthisbookhasinvolvedanenormousamountofdedication,
hard work and commitment by all of the authors who have offered their
stories.Researchhasshownthatwritingstoriesaboutchildhoodtraumais
difficultaswellasveryhealingandIbelieveit’struetosaythatallthecon-
tributorstothisbookhaveexperiencedboththedifficultyandhealing.At
times it has been hard for some people to continue and indeed some did
not. I would like to thank all of the people involved in the creation of this
book most sincerely for attempting to face that struggle, including those
who did not continue to publication. Some authors were already very
familiar with the art of writing, but telling their personal stories of trauma
has taken most writers into new and unfamiliar parts of themselves and
theirhistories.Thistakescourage.Allowingmetosharethosestorieswith
the wider community takes even more courage.
Many people have supported me in this project, through reading
drafts, giving feedback, making suggestions including my fellow authors
of this book. I would like to thank all of them especially Shirley
Margerison, Michael Carroll, Janet May and members of our monthly
narrative research group. My colleagues at the University of Bristol, espe-
cially Tim Bond, Carol Graham, Wendy Laughlin, Ali Leftwich, Jane
Speedy and Sheila Trahar, have stimulated me through our conversations
aboutnarrativeandstoriesandhavesufferedmyagonisingontheprosand
cons of attempting this work at all.
Ihaveonceagainbeenfortunatetohavehadthesupportof thestaff at
Jessica Kingsley Publishers who have always been so encouraging of my
ideas, especially Amy Lankester-Owen and Claudia Conway.
As ever, my husband and soul mate has been by my side, quietly
nurturing me as I have travelled through this part of my journey. I would
like to acknowledge his generosity in giving time and energy to support
my work, especially important whilst I have been so closely involved in
other people’s trauma stories at the same time as revisiting my own.
8
Introduction
Kim Etherington
Thetellerofchaosstoriesis,preeminently,thewoundedstoryteller,but
those who are truly living the chaos cannot tell in words.
Frank (1995, p.98)
Making a coherent narrative out of experiences of childhood trauma is
perhaps one of the most difficult tasks we can set ourselves and this is
exactly what I set out to do through the creation of this book. Childhood
traumacreateschaosinmanypeople’slivesandchaoscanleaveusspeech-
less, voiceless and silenced. But the body, the physical foundation upon
whichourpersonhoodiserected(Lowen1967),andourspirit,theessence
of our uniqueness and individuality, are rarely silenced, even by trauma.
Without a voice our body finds other ways to speak for us; our spirit
survives and transcends our physical body.
This book is full of stories about survival and transformation. These
stories are told by people who have discovered ways of relieving their
bodies of the task of speaking for them; people who have found ways of
honouring their chaos and accepting the reality of trauma in their lives.
They have ‘met their suffering head on’ (Frank, p.115) and found a voice
with which to narrate their stories now that they feel ready to stand back
and reflect upon their lives.
Background
Back in 1996 I decided to try and discover how people understood the
links between the experience of trauma and the body. My interest in this
topic stemmed primarily from a growing understanding of my own
complex relationship with my body and the illnesses I had suffered over
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