Book ExcerptFrom: Page 57
Coping with Anticipated Trauma through Culturally-Informed Fictional Narrative: From the Holocaust to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Abstract:
Coping with Anticipated Trauma through Culturally-Informed Fictional Narrative: From the Holocaust to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Abstract:
Anticipating traumatic experiences can induce intense distress and fear. Construction of fictional narratives can help with coping with that fear by externalizing it. Because it is fictional, it permits us to think and talk safely about the unspeakable. Creative writing can explore meanings for an imagined exposure to an anticipated trauma, and can help prepare for it, and integrate previous chaotic and fragmented traumatic experiences. These stories can foster connections by providing their narrators and readers with a testimony that can be witnessed and shared.
As an illustration, we describe and analyze such a constructed fictional narrative. Being grounded in cultural and religious references or symbols connects the narrator with a community and its collective narrative. This culturally-specific approach could be adapted across different settings and cultures, from trauma of the Holocaust in the past, into current traumatic situations, such as those related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As an illustration, we describe and analyze such a constructed fictional narrative. Being grounded in cultural and religious references or symbols connects the narrator with a community and its collective narrative. This culturally-specific approach could be adapted across different settings and cultures, from trauma of the Holocaust in the past, into current traumatic situations, such as those related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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