More From This User
Amnesia Globale Transitoria
L'amnesia globale transitoria (TGA). L'amnesia globale transitoria è un distu...
EDITORIAL
The Dissociations of Everyday Life
“Daily life is full of many small dissociations if we look for them.”
–(E. R. Hilgard, 1973)
1
Hilgard’s comment has within it two observations: one regarding the ubiq-uityofdissociativeexperiencesineverydaylife,theotherconcerningourcuri-ous lack of awareness of that fact. It is with pleasure, therefore, that Icomposethis editorial for this special issue of the
Journal of Trauma & Dissociation
on“Dissociation in Culture.”
2
The articles that constitute this issue–articles thatexamine dissociative phenomena in aspects of popular culture and religion– represent one of the first efforts, to my knowledge, to explore dissociative ex-perience across a variety of relatively common, and surprisingly normative,life activities.
3
Although the topics covered here represent a small subset of those that could be examined, I hope the reader comes away, as I have, with asense of excitement regarding the potential scope of these phenomena. In thefollowing, I briefly describe these papers, revisit the dissociative continuum,and present several tentative observations regarding the nature, and perhapsthe purpose, of dissociations of everyday life.
Please note that this electronic prepublication galley may contain typographical errors and may be missingartwork, such as charts, photographs, etc. Pagination in this version will differ from the published version.
Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, Vol. 5(2) 2004http://www.haworthpress.com/web/JTD
2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.Digital Object Identifier: 10.1300/J229v05n02_01
1
THE PAPERS IN THIS ISSUE
The first four articles of this issue examine dissociation as represented, oras experienced, in recreational activities of daily life, including film, fiction,and music. Steven Gold conducts a psychological dissection of the popularfilm,
Fight Club
(based on Palahniuk’s [1996] book of the same name), wherein the two central protagonists–the Narrator and Tyler–are revealed tobe two facets of the same individual. Gold steps back from the diagnostic par-ticularsofthestorylinetodevelopatexturedandcompellingargumentthatel-ements of modern society (in particular, consumerism, technology, and rapidmobility) are psychologically toxic–and specifically dissociogenic–to con-temporary well-being.Rachel Goldsmith and Michelle Satterlee examine the discourse of repre-sentations of trauma and dissociation in modern fiction, documenting theunique perspectives and naturalistic contextualization that fictional accountsprovide. By examining how fiction portrays individual experience, emotions,dissociation, communication, meaning, and healing and recovery, and com-paring these accounts to the definitions and conceptualizations ofclinical psy-chology, the authors convincingly demonstrate that study of such accountscan add needed breadth and depth to our understanding of the effects of trauma.OxanaPaleshandIexaminedissociation infilm,including thepropositionsthatmovie-viewingmayitselfbeadissociativeexperience,thatcinematicrep-resentations of peri- and posttraumatic experience rely on the moviegoer’sinnateunderstandingofsuchexperiences,andthatrepresentationsofdissociationin film are common because of the rich plot possibilities of dissociative disor-ders and because they provide a means to examine universal existential expe-riences and themes of memory, identity and multiplicity.Bridgingtheapparentgapbetweenrecreationandspiritualimpulse,KathrynBecker-Blease examines dissociation in two modern music forms–New Agemusic and trance music (associated with raves)–each developed and practicedto induce trance-type states. Her fascinating analysis indicates that New Ageandtrancemusicappeartobetwomodernsecularinstantiations ofhumanity’sstrivings for meaningful altered states of consciousness, including spiritualtrancestatesassociatedwithstimulus-richsocialeventsofdanceandrhythmicsound, and ecstatic religious experiences associated with tranquil, solitarycontemplation.The final three articles offer intriguing examinations of dissociation in orfrom religious contexts. Tanya Luhrmann proposes the provocative anthropo-logical thesis that the waxing and waning (American) prevalence of dis-sociative disorders over the past century mirrors the rise and fall of charismaticChristian revivals and may be due, at least in part, to them. In support of one
2 JOURNAL OF TRAUMA & DISSOCIATION
partofthisclaim,Luhrmannexaminesinevocativedetaildissociativefeaturesof religious induction methodology, as practiced in a modern evangelicalChristian sect, that emphasize and cultivate trance-like experiences throughprayer and other means.Eli Somer describes fascinating 16th and 17th century records and eyewit-ness accounts of spirit possession in Judaism (in the Kabbalist tradition) andcompares the characteristics of these cases to modern views of dissociativeidentity disorder. Somer suggests that the former may represent culturally-shaped and -sanctioned presentations of fundamental dissociative pathologythat meet the pressing psychological needs of the sufferer as well as servingthesocialcontrol andconformity objectives ofthesocietyinwhichtheymani-fest.Lynn Waelde’s description of the centuries-old principles of concentrativemeditation also places altered states of consciousness in a rich historical tradi-tion. Waelde examines the uses of meditation in the regulation of the contentsof awareness alongside an engaging case study of a Vietnam combat veteran who used seemingly similar strategies for twenty years to regulate his post-combat psychological functioning (a strategy that ultimately failed him).Waelde compares the elements of meditation to features of dissociation anddiscusses findings regarding the use of meditation practices in the seculartreatment setting.Taken together, these papers provide evidence of the ubiquity of dis-sociative phenomena innormative humanactivities. Additionally, theyunder-score the contribution of the shaping influences “of individual psychologicalneeds and conflicts, social forces and cultural factors” (Ludwig, 1983, p. 95;see also Kluft, 1984) that constitute the context in which dissociative pro-cesses develop and manifest. The variety of these influences goes somedistance toward accounting for the protean expressions regarded to be dis-sociative. For example, the diverse effects of cultural, subcultural, and socialcontexts on experiences of dissociation are apparent in trance and possessionstates (Becker-Blease, 2004; Somer, 2004) and religious and spiritual practice(Luhrmann, 2004; Waelde, 2004), along with the representations of dissocia-tioninfiction(Goldsmith&Satterlee,2004)andfilm(Butler&Palesh,2004),andthehypothesized disintegration ofidentityresultingfrompathogenic soci-etal features (Gold, 2004).In sum, the findings from these papers thread dissociative experiencesthrough history and across cultures; span disparate domains of experiencefrom impulse to striving, from recreation to religion; attest, in many cases, tothe continuity of dissociation from normality to pathology; and, highlight thepervasive presence and use of dissociation in everyday life.
Editorial 3
of 00
6480314 Everyday Dissociations Butler
520 Reads
Info and Rating
| Category: | |
| Rating: | |
| Upload Date: | 07/07/2009 |
| Copyright: | Attribution Non-commercial |
| Tags: |
Leave a Comment