affects specific and observable changes in our health, such as blood pressure or heart rate. This is a rich, extremely valuable body of work—summarized later—that’s been long over-due. Of course, the bulk of this research is quantitative in nature.
However, we know almost nothing about how, specifically, the written products and processes function in improving health. Researchers in writing, rhetoric, and pedagogy have not focused on how writing about trauma works, in terms of its specific language or its thinking and composing processes. What motivates them to write in the first place? How do they conceive of their audiences? How do they organize their pieces? What evidence appears in their writing—and in their reflections on this writing—that reveals specific critical thinking strategies? What language devices do they employ in their writing?
For these reasons and many more, I embarked on what became a ten-year study to describe, as closely as I could, how and why experienced, effective writers compose to “heal” themselves—the focus of the following chapters. Most of the people described in this book are language experts who have devoted their lives to the study and teaching of reading and writing. These professionals were tenured faculty members in university English and education departments, conducted research, published widely, presented frequently at professional meetings, and received awards for their work. Others were experienced teachers pursuing graduate degrees. A few are middle-school, junior high, and high school students.
In Chapter 1, “Composing through Trauma,” I describe the foundational principles or “pillars” of such composing. Only by immersion in “the thing itself” can we better understand such complex feelings, so I’ll try to anchor these principles in the experiences, products, and processes of all kinds of people, who, in many different ways, seek to compose their way through trauma.
Regardless of the age, background, or expertise level of these writers, trauma has a way of leveling the field on which they find themselves. While improvement in writing itself is not an explicit point or chapter in this book, I believe it reverberates in every line in the pages ahead. One argument behind this book is that writing not only wrestles with trauma, but in so doing, it develops many writing skills. Readers will find identification of numerous thinking strategies in nearly every discourse examined—especially those types of thinking that have long been heralded as necessary for academic prose and success in the workplace. In fact, I think that readers will find that improvement of discourse cannot help but occur when we write about trauma. After all, such writing occurs when we are literally driven to understand immediate issues weighting us down, when hesitancy, self-censorship, and cultural artifice have fallen away, when such “shackles” become, somehow, no longer very relevant. Writers, themselves, recognize when their words and voices ring true, when their knots of fear and confusion get laid out in clearer, straighter lines.
Chapter 2, “Beyond ‘Just Academic Stuff . . . ’” provides the main contexts for this work, describing the course, the teacher, and the resultant study. Writing, reading, visualizing, reflecting, revising, and talking about our trauma not only make us better writers, but they create an environment that leads to deeper, wider understanding of those unspeakable moments that too often lay frozen within us. However, this composing through trauma is by no means a magic bullet. Composing about trauma is not a cure-all or remotely similar to any kind of vague, mystical panacea. Instead, it’s hard work that demands commitment, time, extensive writing, thinking, and many other activities and processes.
Most of the people you’ll meet in the chapters ahead have experienced much worse traumas than I did when I couldn’t grasp the death of my grandfather. At that time, my only way to manage my grief was to bolt out of the dining room, run out to the yard, lay back in the grass, and watch the clouds drift above. Suddenly, brazenly, the world made no sense. When the people in this book turn to composing their way through trauma, they look face-up into that same sky that goes on forever, as they work toward understanding.
Traumas that we are compelled to write about are powerful human ones, which require a uniquely human response—writing to and for ourselves and trusted others—small, human voices that rail against the universe. Such writing is very much like prayer, whether or not we believe in a God. This, we have to believe, is the highest, holiest use of language imaginable.
1 Composing through Trauma
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
William Shakespeare, As You Like It (2.1.14–19)
Claire, a bright young student in my graduate course focused on writing about trauma, insisted that she “didn’t have anything to heal from.” At semester’s end, she did not turn in the long narrative and analysis of a traumatic event. I had constantly assured her that “traumas” reside on a continuum, from the most severe to the least serious, and she could choose topics heavy or light. She finished most of the assignments, but when it came time for the final project, in which writers combined and synthesized their various writings into a single piece, she did not turn anything in. I had to assign her a grade of “Incomplete.”
What most concerned me was that her calm, rational observations about why she could not complete this project caused me to question the premise of my course. Would there be future students who simply have nothing to say about any kind of trauma or issue, regardless of its degree of severity? Claire had struck me as an honest, forthright person, so maybe others felt the same way but said nothing? I’d long known that writing about trauma is not for everyone, nor should it be. But this didn’t stop me from worrying that this course—which the other twenty-two students seemed to find valuable—could not happen again. A few months after the class ended, Claire sent me this email.
Hello Dr. Fox,
I know my name is probably the last thing you wanted to see in your inbox. I want to talk to you about my paper. It’s finished, and I was wondering if I could still turn it in. To be honest, my real concern is about the content of the paper. Dr. Fox, I let it out. I let it all out. What you are going to read is the bare bones . . . plain Claire with nothing extra. I debated for a long time if I were going to write about what my logic was telling me or what my soul was propelling me to write about. I know this sounds corny and clichéd, but it’s the truth. I initially told myself that I was going to write about the relationship between my brother and my mom and the fistfight they had when I was eight. It just wasn’t coming out, because I had another subject pressing on my mind. It has been a subject that I wanted to talk about for years, but have been scared of the repercussions. Dr. Fox, I talk about repeatedly being molested . . . by my brother. Just last year, I would not have even thought about writing that down, but the floodgates have been opened and I can’t shut them. This has been both easy and difficult for me to write. It was easy because there was so much that I wanted to say. (Personal Communication 2003)
Claire’s case solidified three important lessons for me. First, it ingrained in me that writing about trauma is not for everyone. Second, it’s not for everyone at certain times. We can suggest and nudge people to write about trauma, but we cannot force them. (I didn’t try to persuade Claire to do anything she did not want to do, and grades were off the table, but the fact remains that she was enrolled in a college graduate course.) Finally, this situation underscored the fact that writing about trauma does work, much of the time, and for good reason: The positive effects that writing has on wellness have been documented through qualitative and quantitative research studies, conducted over time, with different populations and rigorous methods.
In “Writing as Physical and Emotional Healing: Findings from Clinical Research,” Jessica Singer and George Singer (2008) provide a comprehensive review of clinical research on the positive effects of writing on a variety of maladies. The authors review how writers, by using expressive language and self-disclosure, can mediate the adverse effects of physical traumas, including the Epstein-Barr Virus, blood pressure, cancer,