Fear

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 340 of 529 · 20 per page

• From The History of World Literature (2007)

  265 Rushdie, Salman (b. 1947): Rushdie was born in Bombay but educated primarily in England, including Cambridge University. He came to international attention with his second novel, Midnight’ s Children (1981), when he was awarded the Booker of Bookers award as the best novel to have won the Booker Prize in its 25 years of existence. His acknowledged models are Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and he generally writes in the mode sometimes called Magic Realism. In 1988 his The Satanic Verses was condemned by Iranian authorities as blasphemous, and a fatwa, calling for his death, was pronounced. He spent the next 10 years in hiding, protected by the British Secret Service, and even since the fatwa was lifted, he has lived in constant danger. It was during his 10 years in hiding that he wrote Haroun and the Sea of Stories. 266 Bibliography for Lectures 1–12 Bibliography for Lectures 1–12 Essential Reading: Note: Every work treated in this part of the course is available in multiple editions and translations, many of them excellent. I have listed here the ones from which my text citations were taken. In general, the best strategy is to ¿ nd a translation that gives you suf ¿ cient introductory material to help orient you to the text and suf ¿ cient editorial help to understand what you are reading. If you ¿ nd those things, you have found the recommended translation for you. Aeschylus. The Oresteia. Robert Fagles, trans. New York: Viking Penguin, 1975. An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911. Stephen Owen, ed. and trans. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. Beowulf. Seamus Heaney, trans. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2000. The Bhagavad-Gita. Barbara Stoler Miller, trans. New York: Bantam, 1986. Chuang Chou. Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings. Burton Watson, trans. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964. Confucius. The Analects. D.C. Lau, trans. New York: Penguin, 1979. Euripides. Mêdeia. Euripides: The Complete Plays. V olume I. Carl R. Mueller, trans. Hanover, New Hampshire: Smith and Kraus, 2005. Homer: The Iliad. Robert Fagles, trans. New York: Viking Penguin, 1990. Homer: The Odyssey . Robert Fitzgerald, trans. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1961.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  But he did identify with the need for an emotion-free zone where sex could be unencumbered and raw, and where all vulnerabilities, inadequacies, and dependencies—his and hers—might be temporarily suspended. Had the tapes not been out there, I might not have initiated this level of discussion about Nat’s viewing habits. For one thing, Nat and Amanda had not been with each other long; they were still anchoring their life together, negotiating many aspects of their relationship. I sensed that Amanda’s insecurities, prejudices, and aesthetic differences would make it difficult for her to hear about his private turn-ons in a way that didn’t threaten her. For his part, Nat was not especially responsive to Amanda’s sensibilities. He was cavalier about the effect all these tapes were having on her, and (contrary to his own objections) he was being a bit coy about not understanding what it all meant. His argument that he loved her too much to be able to eroticize her that way was too glib. Exposing one’s inner erotic life demands more sensitivity and tact than Nat exhibited. Likewise, entering the fantasy world of our partner requires more sense of separateness than Amanda was able to muster. Some people get off on peeking behind the curtain of their partner’s secret imaginings; for others, this is a disaster. It not only fails to enrich but actually hurts their erotic complicity. Inviting someone into the recesses of our erotic mind is risky. When the fantasy is poorly received it can be devastating. But when it’s received in a way that makes us feel recognized and accepted, it can be richly affirming. While the fantasy itself may not be an intimate scenario, its disclosure expresses and fosters deep love and trust. At the same time, entering the erotic mindscape of another requires an effort of understanding and a considerable degree of emotional separateness. We may not like what we hear; we may not find it sexy. This level of compassionate objectivity is not easy to achieve, especially with regard to desire. If our partner is aroused by something foreign to us, something other, the temptation is to judge first and ask questions later, if at all. What begins as an open inquiry can rapidly degenerate into a mutually defensive withdrawal. When the erotic mind senses criticism, it goes into hiding. No longer private, it becomes secretive. I am a proponent of privacy, and I prefer a cautious approach in matters of sexual self-disclosure. Exploring one’s eroticism is not synonymous with making it public; and acknowledging need not mean detailed sharing.

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  who knocked on your window at three in the morning, who you thought was smiling until you saw the blade held over his mouth. I made this, I made this for you, he said, the knife suddenly in your hand. Trevor later on your steps in the grey dawn. His face in his arms. I don’t wanna, he said. His panting. His shaking hair. The blur of it. Please tell me I am not, he said through the sound of his knuckles as he popped them like the word But But But. And you take a step back. Please tell me I am not, he said, I am not a faggot. Am I? Am I? Are you? Trevor the hunter. Trevor the carnivore, the redneck, not a pansy, shotgunner, sharpshooter, not fruit or fairy. Trevor meateater but not veal. Never veal. Fuck that, never again after his daddy told him the story when he was seven, at the table, veal roasted with rosemary. How they were made. How the difference between veal and beef is the children. The veal are the children of cows, are calves. They are locked in boxes the size of themselves. A body-box, like a coffin, but alive, like a home. The children, the veal, they stand very still because tenderness depends on how little the world touches you. To stay tender, the weight of your life cannot lean on your bones. We love eatin’ what’s soft, his father said, looking dead into Trevor’s eyes. Trevor who would never eat a child. Trevor the child with the scar on his neck like a comma. A comma you now put your mouth to. That violet hook holding two complete thoughts, two complete bodies without subjects. Only verbs. When you say Trevor you mean the action, the pine-stuck thumb on the Bic lighter, the sound of his boots on the Chevy’s sun-bleached hood. The wet live thing dragged into the truck bed behind him. Your Trevor, your brunette but blond-dusted-arms man pulling you into the truck. When you say Trevor you mean you are the hunted, a hurt he can’t refuse because that’s something, baby. That’s real. And you wanted to be real, to be swallowed by what drowns you only to surface, brimming at the mouth. Which is kissing. Which is nothing if you forget. His tongue in your throat, Trevor speaks for you. He speaks and you darken, a flashlight going out in his hands so he knocks you in the head to keep the bright on. He turns you this way and that to find his path through the dark woods. The dark words— which have limits, like bodies. Like the calf waiting in its coffin-house. No window—but a slot for oxygen. Pink nose pressed to the autumn night, inhaling. The bleached stench of cut grass, the tar and gravel road, coarse sweetness of leaves in a bonfire, the minutes, the distance, the earthly manure of his mother a field away.

• From Branded: Brainwashed Inside NXIVM (2020)

  915 00:45:08,972 --> 00:45:11,375 The idea that it was a cult never crossed my mind, 916 00:45:11,475 --> 00:45:14,845 because in my head, a cult was Charles Manson, 917 00:45:14,945 --> 00:45:18,282 dead chickens and things like that. 918 00:45:18,382 --> 00:45:20,851 There's a saying that nobody joins a cult 919 00:45:20,951 --> 00:45:24,621 because initially, cults do not present themselves 920 00:45:24,722 --> 00:45:26,757 as being cult like. 921 00:45:26,857 --> 00:45:29,927 Initially, they will seem very warm, 922 00:45:30,027 --> 00:45:32,896 and they have these ideals where 923 00:45:32,996 --> 00:45:34,765 they talk about changing the world. 924 00:45:34,865 --> 00:45:38,836 And they entice followers to join something 925 00:45:38,936 --> 00:45:41,338 that could change humanity. 926 00:45:41,438 --> 00:45:44,541 [Dr. Lauch] Yes, it's isolation, it's alienation from 927 00:45:44,641 --> 00:45:46,410 people you knew before, 928 00:45:46,510 --> 00:45:49,413 because the more and more and more you get enveloped in it, 929 00:45:49,513 --> 00:45:50,948 you feel very trapped. 930 00:45:51,048 --> 00:45:53,917 And that's when it gets even more difficult to leave, 931 00:45:54,017 --> 00:45:57,921 because you--you can't imagine life away from that. 932 00:45:59,857 --> 00:46:01,258 [Narrator] While the article turns 933 00:46:01,358 --> 00:46:05,929 an ugly spotlight on the group, the damage is limited. 934 00:46:06,029 --> 00:46:07,498 [Paige] The world wasn't ready to hear it yet. 935 00:46:07,598 --> 00:46:10,467 People viewed it as them voluntarily giving this money. 936 00:46:10,567 --> 00:46:13,137 And I'm sorry that you gave your money to a scam, 937 00:46:13,237 --> 00:46:15,539 but how is that our problem? 938 00:46:15,639 --> 00:46:19,309 And so eventually, people kind of forget about NXIVM. 939 00:46:20,410 --> 00:46:22,146 But regardless, Keith is paranoid 940 00:46:22,246 --> 00:46:23,881 after that article comes out. 941 00:46:23,981 --> 00:46:27,351 He's terrified of what's going to happen. 942 00:46:27,451 --> 00:46:30,788 He thinks that it's going to completely ruin 943 00:46:30,888 --> 00:46:33,924 his entire empire. 944 00:46:34,024 --> 00:46:35,192 [Narrator] Raniere quickly sets out 945 00:46:35,292 --> 00:46:37,661 to rebuild NXIVM's public image. 946 00:46:38,762 --> 00:46:43,667 In 2009, he once again turns to his two largest benefactors, 947 00:46:43,767 --> 00:46:46,837 Sara and Clare Bronfman, for help. 948 00:46:46,937 --> 00:46:49,606 [Rick] The Bronfman sisters are a huge part of the NXIVM story 949 00:46:49,706 --> 00:46:51,842 because their financial backing 950 00:46:51,942 --> 00:46:54,077 is able to give him a sort of respectability, 951 00:46:54,178 --> 00:46:56,380 to be able to say, wow, there's a lot of money behind this guy. 952 00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:58,515 He's got the Bronfman sisters there. 953 00:46:58,615 --> 00:47:00,951 The Bronfmans are key to lending Keith money, 954 00:47:01,051 --> 00:47:02,719 giving him millions of dollars, 955 00:47:02,820 --> 00:47:06,757 donating money to something called The Ethical Foundation. 956 00:47:06,857 --> 00:47:08,959 [Narrator] The World Ethical Foundation-- 957 00:47:09,059 --> 00:47:11,495 a newly created nonprofit whose mission is 958 00:47:11,595 --> 00:47:12,963 to promote the understanding

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  I’m dragged into a hole, darker than the night around it, by two women. Only when one of them screams do I know who I am. I see their heads, black hair matted from the floor they sleep on. The air sharp with a chemical delirium as they jostle in the blur of the car’s interior. Eyes still thick with sleep, I make out the shapes: a headrest, a felt monkey the size of a thumb swinging from the rearview, a piece of metal, shining, then gone. The car peels out of the driveway, and I can tell, from the smell of acetone and nail polish, that it’s your tan-and-rust Toyota. You and Lan are in the front, clamoring for something that won’t show itself. The streetlights fling by, hitting your faces with the force of blows. “He’s gonna kill her, Ma. He’s gonna do it this time,” you say, breathless. “We riding. We riding helicopter fast.” Lan is in her own mind, red and dense with obsession. “We riding where?” She clutches the flip-down mirror with both hands. I can tell by her voice that she is smiling, or at least gritting her teeth. “He’s gonna kill my sister, Mama.” You sound like you’re flailing down a river. “I know Carl. It’s for real this time. You hear me? Ma!” Lan rocks side to side from the mirror, making whooshing sounds. “We getting out of here, huh? We gotta go far, Little Dog!” Outside, the night surges by like sideways gravity. The green numbers on the dash read 3:04. Who put my hands in my face? The tires squeal at each turn. The streets are empty and it feels like a universe in here, an everything hurling through the cosmic dark while, in the front seat, the women who raised me are losing their minds. Through my fingers, the night is black construction paper. Only the frazzled heads of these two before me are clear, swaying. “Don’t worry, Mai.” You’re speaking to yourself now. Your face so close to the windshield the glass fogs a ring that spreads in equal measure to your words. “I’m coming. We’re coming.” After a while we swerve down a street lined with Continentals. The car crawls, then stops in front of a grey clapboard town house. “Mai,” you say, pulling the emergency brake. “He’s gonna kill Mai.” Lan, who all this time had been shaking her head from side to side, stops, as if the words have finally touched a little button inside her. “What? Who kill who? Who die this time?” “Both of you stay in the car!” You unbuckle your belt, leap out, and shuffle toward the house, the door left open behind you.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  “Wouldn’t want you to come down with anything serious,” he said. “Get some sleep, did you?” “Yes sir.” “You must’ve needed it.” I waited. “Oh, by the way, you didn’t happen to hear a funny little pinging noise in the engine, did you?” “What engine?” He smiled. Then he said he’d been at the commissary a few minutes ago with Champion, and that he’d met a man there who recognized the dog and told a pretty interesting story of how they happened to cross paths earlier that morning. What did I think about that? I said I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then he was on me. He caught me with one hand under the covers and the other holding the sandwich, and at first, instead of protecting myself, I jerked the sandwich away as if that was what he wanted. His open hands lashed back and forth across my face. I dropped the sandwich and covered my face with my forearm, but I couldn’t keep his hands away. He was kneeling on the bed, his legs on either side of me, locking me in with the blankets. I shouted his name, but he kept hitting me in a fast convulsive rhythm and I knew he was beyond all hearing. Somehow, with no conscious intention, I pulled my other arm free and hit him in the throat. He reared back, gasping. I pushed him off the bed and kicked the covers away, but before I could get up he grabbed my hair and forced my face down hard against the mattress. Then he hit me in the back of the neck. I went rigid with the shock. He tightened his grip on my hair. I waited for him to hit me again. I could hear him panting. We stayed like that for a while. Then he pushed me away and got up. He stood over me, breathing hoarsely. “Clean up this mess,” he said. He turned at the door and said, “I hope you learned your lesson.” I learned a couple of lessons. I learned that a punch in the throat does not always stop the other fellow. And I learned that it’s a bad idea to curse when you’re in trouble, but a good idea to sing, if you can. CHAMPION HAD SEEN his last merganser. He turned out to be a cat killer. Three times he brought dead cats back to the house between those famously soft jaws of his. Dwight dropped them in the river and yelled at Pearl and me for letting him out. But Champ was under suspicion, and one day he got into someone’s back yard and tore a Persian kitten to pieces under the eyes of the little girl who owned it. The camp director knocked on the door that evening and told Dwight that Champion had to go, now.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  State intervention makes some of us breathe a sigh of relief while leaving others stricken with terror. We promote abstinence with fear-based tactics, threaten straying politicians with impeachment, fight gay marriage, and gnaw away at the fragile abortion laws. Though virginity seems a relic of a bygone era, every day our elected officials bring moral gravitas to the legislation of sexuality. Abortion, homosexuality, adultery, and “family values” have been active items on the national political agenda for more than thirty years. This sexual conservatism is rooted in the Puritan tradition, with its deep suspicion of pleasure and its moralistic attitude toward anything that strays from heterosexual, monogamous, marital, reproductive sexuality. Meanwhile, television producers invite us to phone in if we’ve had more than 100 sexual partners. Never before has sex been so publicly displayed, an incessant barrage of explicit images wherever we rest our eyes. Sex, the perennial default for advertising, has also become a commodity in itself. Tune in to almost any daytime talk show to hear about mothers who sleep with their daughters’ boyfriends, men who like to watch, and housewife prostitutes who come out to their unsuspecting husbands. Sex is everywhere, in all its permutations, as exhaustively described by Lillian Rubin: “pornography, impotence, premarital sex, marital sex, extramarital sex, group sex, swinging, S-M, and as many of the other variations of sexual behavior their producer can think of, whether the ordinary or the bizarre.” The politics and economics of sex and the diametrically opposed attitudes we witness daily penetrate the American bedroom and insinuate themselves into the creases of our intimacy. The couples I see live at the intersection of this ambivalence, and must negotiate amid these competing value systems. The legacy of Puritanism, which locates the family at the center of society, expects marriage to be reasonable, sober, and productive. You work, you save, and you plan. You take your commitments seriously. But alongside this very American notion of individual responsibility and moderation is the equally apple-pie notion of individual freedom. We believe in personal fulfillment: in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We relish the freedom to spontaneously satisfy our desires, and we live in a market-driven consumer economy which ensures that those desires never stop coming. The sexual culture tells us what is attractive and what we should want (as if we were incapable of finding out for ourselves whom to desire and what turns us on). An entire industry of hedonism hovers on the outskirts of marriage, a constant reminder of all we’ve sacrificed in exchange for the muted sexuality of marital love.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 2: When a man is under obligation to another by reason of a debt, the only inequality between them is that which is opposed to justice, so that for restitution nothing further is required than that the equality of justice should be reinstated, and this can be done in respect of one debt without another. But when the obligation is based on an offense, there is inequality not only of justice but also of friendship, so that for the offense to be removed by satisfaction, not only must the equality of justice be restored by the payment of a punishment equal to the offense, but also the equality of friendship must be reinstated, which is impossible so long as an obstacle to friendship remains. Reply to Objection 3: By its weight, one sin drags us down to another, as Gregory says (Moral. xxv): so that when a man holds to one sin, he does not sufficiently cut himself off from the causes of further sin. Whether , when deprived of charity, a man can make satisfaction for sins for which he was previously contrite?Objection 1: It would seem that if a man fall into sin after being contrite for all his sins, he can, now that he has lost charity, satisfy for his other sins which were already pardoned him through his contrition. For Daniel said to Nabuchodonosor (Dan. 4:24): “Redeem thou thy sins with alms.” Yet he was still a sinner, as is shown by his subsequent punishment. Therefore a man can make satisfaction while in a state of sin. Objection 2: Further, “Man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or hatred” (Eccles. 9:1). If therefore one cannot make satisfaction unless one be in a state of charity, it would be impossible to know whether one had made satisfaction, which would be unseemly. Objection 3: Further, a man’s entire action takes its form from the intention which he had at the beginning. But a penitent is in a state of charity when he begins to repent. Therefore his whole subsequent satisfaction will derive its efficacy from the charity which quickens his intention. Objection 4: Further, satisfaction consists in a certain equalization of guilt to punishment. But these things can be equalized even in one who is devoid of charity. Therefore, etc. On the contrary, “Charity covereth all sins” (Prov. 10:12). But satisfaction has the power of blotting out sins. Therefore it is powerless without charity. Further, the chief work of satisfaction is almsdeeds. But alms given by one who is devoid of charity avail nothing, as is clearly stated 1 Cor. 13:3, “If I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor . . . and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” Therefore there can be no satisfaction with mortal sin.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 5: An unbeliever does not sin in having intercourse with his wife, if he pays her the marriage debt, for the good of the offspring, or for the troth whereby he is bound to her: since this is an act of justice and of temperance which observes the due circumstance in pleasure of touch; even as neither does he sin in performing acts of other civic virtues. Again, the reason why the whole life of unbelievers is said to be a sin is not that they sin in every act, but because they cannot be delivered from the bondage of sin by that which they do. Whether the husband, being converted to the faith, may remain with his wife is she be unwilling to be converted?Objection 1: It would seem that when a husband is converted to the faith he cannot remain with his wife who is an unbeliever and is unwilling to be converted, and whom he had married while he was yet an unbeliever. For where the danger is the same one should take the same precautions. Now a believer is forbidden to marry an unbeliever for fear of being turned away from the faith. Since then if the believer remain with the unbeliever whom he had married previously, the danger is the same, in fact greater, for neophytes are more easily perverted than those who have been brought up in the faith, it would seem that a believer, after being converted, cannot remain with an unbeliever. Objection 2: Further, “An unbeliever cannot remain united to her who has been received into the Christian faith” (Decretals, XXVIII, qu. 1, can. Judaei). Therefore a believer is bound to put away a wife who does not believe. Objection 3: Further, a marriage contracted between believers is more perfect than one contracted between unbelievers. Now, if believers marry within the degrees forbidden by the Church, their marriage is void. Therefore the same applies to unbelievers, and thus a believing husband cannot remain with an unbelieving wife, at any rate, if as an unbeliever he married her within the forbidden degrees. Objection 4: Further, sometimes an unbeliever has several wives recognized by his law. If, then, he can remain with those whom he married while yet an unbeliever, it would seem that even after his conversion he can retain several wives. Objection 5: Further, it may happen that after divorcing his first wife he has married a second, and that he is converted during this latter marriage. It would seem therefore that at least in this case he cannot remain with this second wife. On the contrary, The Apostle counsels him to remain (1 Cor. 7:12). Further, no impediment that supervenes upon a true marriage dissolves it. Now it was a true marriage when they were both unbelievers. Therefore when one of them is converted, the marriage is not annulled on that account; and thus it would seem that they may lawfully remain together.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  But he didn’t fall back, I hardly moved him at all, maybe he staggered just slightly but immediately he sprang forward, with the kind of savagery or abandon I could never allow myself he lunged to strike at me. Maybe he had staggered just slightly and that was why he missed, his aim failing as he lunged or fell forward into the hallway, where I was already moving toward the stairway, off-balance myself, almost reaching it before his hands were on me again, both of his hands now grabbing me and throwing me forward so that I fell down the stairs, or almost fell; by luck I stayed on my feet, though I landed on my right foot in a way that strained or tore something, I would limp for weeks. And maybe it’s only in retrospect that I think I chose how I landed, though I have a memory, an instant of clearheadedness in which I knew he wasn’t finished with me, though he was naked and it was dangerous for him I knew he would follow me, and so I think I decided as I fell forward not to catch myself against the concrete wall but instead to strike the small window there, hitting the pane with my right palm hard, shattering it. The noise did what I wanted, he turned and raced for his door, and in the instant I looked up at him I saw he was frightened. I ran or stumbled down the flights of stairs, and reached the door just as the hallway lights went on, some neighbor above drawn out by the sound. It was very late, the boulevard was quiet, and if in a moment someone would emerge from the little convenience store ( denonoshtno , its window said, day-and-night), if in a moment someone would emerge to investigate, I had time to get away, as I thought of it, walking one block and then another without passing a soul. I kept my head down, trying to be blank and unplaceable, trying to calm what I felt, which was pain and relief and shame and panic still, even though I thought I was clear, that I was far enough now to go on uncaught. But I couldn’t calm what I felt, something rose in me I couldn’t keep down, as I couldn’t keep walking at the pace I had set; with each step my foot was more tender and there was something else, too, a nausea climbing to my throat, I was going to be sick.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  However, in a recent excellent review article, Marx and colleagues 33 add, “Everything we know about the animal and human literature to date suggests that the TI response may itself be traumatic.” d It is here that I respectfully differ: my clinical experience forces me to part ways from that speculation. After more than four decades of observing my traumatized clients à la Holmesian discernment, and guiding them out of frozen states of terror and horror, I have found that the dynamic elements of fear, tonic immobility and trauma paint a far more complex and nuanced portrait. I am convinced that the state of immobility is not in and of itself traumatic. When, for example, immobility is induced in non-traumatized subjects through “hypnotic catalepsy,” they frequently experience that immobility as neutral, interesting or even pleasurable. Mammal mothers routinely pick up their young to move them about, and those babies, when in the clutches of a loving mother’s jaws, stop squirming and go limp. Also, during sexual congress, and particularly at orgasm, the female of many mammal species becomes immobile at this pinnacle of pleasure leading (arguably) to an increased likelihood of fertilization. Contrast this to trauma, where intense fear (and other strong negative affects), when coupled with the immobility response, becomes entrapping and therefore traumatic. This difference suggests a clear rationale for a trauma therapy model that separates fear and other strong negative affects from the (normally time-limited) biological immobility response. Separating the two components breaks the feedback loop that rekindles the trauma response . This, I am convinced, is the philosopher’s stone of informed trauma therapy. Marx and colleagues do seem to amend their position in a direction more compatible with mine when they suggest that “for clinical purposes, it may matter less if TI among humans is an ‘all or none’ phenomenon, as the intensity of the TI response among humans may be an important factor in the onset and maintenance of posttraumatic psychopathology.” 34 Questions like this exemplify important areas for interdisciplinary discussion. Indeed, one of the impediments to the progress of truly effective trauma therapy has been that clinicians, experimentalists and theoreticians have not worked in ongoing partnerships to address such pivotal questions. To summarize: It is my observation that a precondition for the development of posttraumatic stress disorder is that a person is both frightened and perceives that he or she is trapped. The interaction of intense fear and immobility is fundamental in the formation of trauma, in its maintenance and in its deconstruction, resolution and transformation . I shall elaborate on the therapeutic implications of this relationship in Chapters 5 through 9 .

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  A man rushes to my side and drops to his knees. He announces himself as an off-duty paramedic. When I try to see where the voice is coming from, (4. This is an automatic, initial biological orienting response.) he sternly orders, “Don’t move your head.” (5. Now I am put in a double bind with two contradictory commands: one is the innate effort to orient; the other is a demand not to execute this compelling instinct. The result is a collision of opposing impulses. This results in a thwarting of the biological orienting impulse. This was also the case with Vince, the fireman with the frozen shoulder in Chapter 8.) The contradiction between his sharp command and what my body naturally wants—to turn toward his voice—frightens and stuns me into a sort of paralysis. My awareness strangely splits, and I experience an uncanny “dislocation.” It’s as if I’m floating above my body, looking down on the unfolding scene. (6. This description is a classic presentation of dissociation. However, dissociation takes many forms, including the panoply of psychological fragmentation and physical symptoms that can occur in the wake of trauma.) I am snapped back when he roughly grabs my wrist and takes my pulse. He then shifts his position, directly above me. Awkwardly, he grasps my head with both of his hands, trapping it and keeping it from moving. His abrupt actions and the stinging ring of his command panic me; they immobilize me further. (7. This conflict deepens the thwarting and intensifies the immobility response by introducing more fear. This results in fear-potentiated immobility.) Dread seeps into my dazed, foggy consciousness: Maybe I have a broken neck, I think. (8. Dread and helplessness increase the depth and duration of immobility.) I have a compelling impulse to find someone else to focus on. (9. The need for human contact, when threatened, is a mammalian survival instinct—see Chapter 6.) Simply, I need to have someone’s comforting gaze, a lifeline to hold onto. But I’m too terrified to move and feel helplessly frozen. (10. Due to the power of the shock and the immobilization response, there is a reduced ability to ask for help—that is, to engage that more recently developed mammalian social survival instinct.)

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  29 Leda and her group were exceedingly generous in sharing their time and expertise. During my visit I was able to directly observe and participate in the experimental methodology of earlier researchers whose written work had inspired me in the 1970s. These experiments carried out in a dimly lit room involved gently picking up a guinea pig, holding it securely, turning it upside down, and then placing it on its back in a V-shaped wooden trough. When this is done without a struggle , the experimental animal lies motionless for seconds to a minute or two, then flips over and calmly walks off in self-paced termination from immobility. The laboratory guinea pigs may have some inherent fear of humans (a possible confounding variable). Yet these animals still appear to come out of their immobility relatively quickly, and aftereffects were not apparent, thus presumably nonexistent or very mild. A vivid illustration of self-paced termination comes from the arts. In the play Picasso at the Lapin Agile , c the young Pablo takes the jacket from the pretty young woman he has brought up to his Paris loft. Coolly executing a seductive ruse, he reaches outside the window to where a white dove is perched on the ledge. Slowly, but without hesitation, he firmly takes the bird in his hands. As he turns it over, the bird ceases all movement. He then drops it to the street, three stories below. The young woman gasps, reflexively bringing her hand to her mouth. At the last moment, the dove rights itself and flies off, unharmed, into the Montmartre night. Picasso then turns to his voluptuous human prey, drawing her immobile body into a lecherous embrace. This is an instructive glimpse of how animals negotiate immobility and how the consensual sexual act and orgasmic release involve some immobility in the absence of fear. Immobility, in the absence of fear, is benign and even pleasurable, as in the example of a mother cat carrying its limp kitten securely in its mouth. Returning to the laboratory: Self-paced termination clearly does not occur when an animal is purposefully frightened before being captured (or when it comes out of immobility) and/or is repeatedly placed on its back. In the latter case, the guinea pig (or other animal) remains paralyzed for far longer than a few minutes. When this fear-induced process is repeated numerous times, the animal remains immobile for a significantly longer period—so much so that we went out for lunch and returned to find it still inert on its back. Applications to Trauma Therapy Only a handful of behavioral scientists have been seriously interested in tonic immobility as the biological foundation of trauma. Some of these recent authors have suggested that immobility is intrinsically traumatic. 30 It is my experience that this view is misleading. It limits our understanding of trauma and restricts the possibility of effective therapeutic intervention.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Your neck, back, legs and feet muscles are working together to turn your body, which extends and lengthens. Your eyes narrow as your pelvis and head shift horizontally to give an optimal, panoramic view of your surroundings. What is your internal state? What other intangible aspects of yourself do you feel or sense in response to seeing the moving shadow? Most people will feel alert and engaged, even curious. Perhaps you feel a hint of excitement and anticipation or, possibly, of danger. Animals and humans also need to know if one of their own has aggressive intentions. Ignoring such signals may well put you in harm’s way. In sessions with hundreds of rape victims, I have discovered that many could recall the early presence of danger signals that they had ignored or overridden. They could remember the man staring at them as they left a restaurant or the fleeting shadow as they passed a street corner. I have also worked with several rapists who graphically described precisely how they knew (from a woman’s posture and gait) who was fearful (or propped up with false bravado) and would thus be easy prey. The precision and accuracy of these perpetrators’ assessments were truly unsettling. Although their capacity to empathize and read subtle emotions was greatly impaired, their predatory ability to read fear and helplessness was expertly honed. They made deliberate use of the innate skills that we tend to dismiss at our own peril. One’s posture and facial muscles signal emotional states, not only to others, but to oneself as well . 13 We shall see in the following sections that, as social creatures, it is through empathy that we make our deepest communications. To do this we must be able to “resonate” with the sensations and emotions of others; we must, in other words, be able to feel the same things as those around us feel. The way we indicate this is primarily nonverbal; it is through our postures and expressive emotions. Biological, or postural, tuning is also the foundation for the “therapeutic resonance” that is vitally important in helping people heal from trauma. A therapist who is not aware of how his or her own body reacts to (i.e., resonates with) the fear, rage, helplessness and shame in another person will not be able to guide clients by tracking their sensations and navigating them safely through the sometimes treacherous (albeit therapeutic) waters of traumatic sensations. At the same time, by learning how to track their own sensations, therapists can avoid absorbing the fear, rage and helplessness of their clients. It is important to understand that when therapists perceive that they must protect themselves from their clients’ sensations and emotions, they unconsciously block those clients from therapeutically experiencing them. By distancing ourselves from their anguish, we distance ourselves from them and from the fears they are struggling with. To take a self-protective stance is to abandon our clients precipitately.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  A doctor who insists on retaining his or her protected role as “healthy healer” remains separate, defending him- or herself against the ultimate helplessness that lurks, phantom-like, in all of our lives. Cut off from his or her own feelings, such a doctor will not be able to join with the sufferer. Missing will be the crucial collaboration in containing, processing and integrating the patient’s horrible sensations, images and emotions. The sufferer will remain starkly alone, holding the very horrors that have overwhelmed him and broken down his capacity to self-regulate and grow. In a common therapy resulting from this isolating orientation, the therapist instructs the PTSD victim to assert control over his feelings, to manage his aberrant behaviors and to alter his dysfunctional thoughts. Contrast this alignment to that of shamanic traditions, where the healer and the sufferer join together to reexperience the terror while calling on cosmic forces to release the grip of the demons. The shaman is always first initiated, via a profound encounter with his own helplessness and feeling of being shattered, prior to assuming the mantle of healer. Such preparation might suggest a model whereby contemporary therapists must first recognize and engage with their own traumas and emotional wounds. † The Power of Myth Mythology is a function of biology. —Joseph Campbell in Myth and the Body Healing has been hindered by a nomenclature and a paradigm that, in separating the healer from the wounded, denies the universality of our responses to terror and horror. The aspiration to reinvigorate a contemporary approach to healing trauma requires each of us to connect to our biological commonality as instinctual beings; thus, we are linked not only by our common vulnerability to fright but by our innate capacity to transform such experiences. In pursuing this link, we can learn much from mythology and from our animal brethren. It is the weaving together of heroic myth and biology (“mytho-biology”) that will help us comprehend the roots and mysterium tremendum of trauma. Medusa Mythology teaches us about courageously meeting challenges. Myths are archetypal stories that simply and directly touch the core of our being. They remind us about our deepest longings, and reveal to us our hidden strengths and resources. They are also maps of our essential nature, pathways that connect us to each other, to nature and to the cosmos. The Greek myth of Medusa captures the very essence of trauma and describes its pathway to transformation. In the Greek myth, those who looked directly into Medusa’s eyes were promptly turned into stone … frozen in time. Before setting out to vanquish this snake-haired demon, Perseus sought counsel from Athena, the goddess of knowledge and strategy. Her advice to him was simple: under no circumstances should he look directly at the Gorgon. Taking Athena’s advice to heart, Perseus used the protective shield fastened on his arm to reflect the image of Medusa.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  In freezing, your muscles stiffen against a mortal blow, and you feel “scared stiff.” On the other hand, when you experience death as being unequivocally imminent (as when bared fangs are ready to annihilate you), your muscles collapse as though they have lost all their energy. In this “default” reaction (when it has become chronic, as it does in trauma), you feel that you are in a state of helpless resignation and lack the energy to fuel your life and move forward. This collapse, defeat and loss of the will to live are at the very core of deep trauma. Being “scared stiff” or “frozen in fear”—or, alternatively, collapsing and going numb—accurately describes the physical, visceral, bodily experience of intense fear and trauma. Since the body enacts all of these survival options, it is the body’s narration that therapists must address in order to understand these reactions and to mobilize them in transforming trauma. It may help therapists (and their clients) to know that immobility appears to serve at least four important survival functions in mammals. First, it is a last-ditch survival strategy, colloquially known as “playing opossum.” Rather than pretense, though, it is a deadly serious innate biological tactic. With a slow, small animal like the opossum, flight or fight is unlikely to be successful. By passively resisting, in the grand tradition of Gandhi, the animal’s inertness tends to inhibit the predator’s aggression and reduce its urge to kill and to eat. In addition, a motionless animal is frequently abandoned (especially when it also emits a putrid odor like rotting meat) and not eaten by such predators as the coyote—unless, of course, this animal is very hungry.a With such “death feigning,” the opossum may live to escape, plodding along into another day. Similarly, the cheetah may drag its motionless prey to a safe place, removed from potential competitors, and return to her lair to fetch her cubs (so as to share the kill with them). While she is gone, the gazelle may awaken from its paralysis and, in an unguarded moment, make a hasty escape. Second, immobility affords a certain degree of invisibility: an inert body is much less likely to be seen by a predator. Third, immobility may promote group survival: when hunted by a predator pack, the collapse of one individual may distract the pack long enough for the rest of the herd to escape.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, Some have said that if, when all a man’s sins have been pardoned through contrition, and before he has made satisfaction for them, he falls into sin, and then makes satisfaction, such satisfaction will be valid, so that if he die in that sin, he will not be punished in hell for the other sins. But this cannot be, because satisfaction requires the reinstatement of friendship and the restoration of the equality of justice, the contrary of which destroys friendship, as the Philosopher states (Ethic. ix, 1,3). Now in satisfaction made to God, the equality is based, not on equivalence but rather on God’s acceptation: so that, although the offense be already removed by previous contrition, the works of satisfaction must be acceptable to God, and for this they are dependent on charity. Consequently works done without charity are not satisfactory. Reply to Objection 1: Daniel’s advice meant that he should give up sin and repent, and so make satisfaction by giving alms. Reply to Objection 2: Even as man knows not for certain whether he had charity when making satisfaction, or whether he has it now, so too he knows not for certain whether he made full satisfaction: wherefore it is written (Ecclus. 5:5): “Be not without fear about sin forgiven.” And yet man need not, on account of that fear, repeat the satisfaction made, if he is not conscious of a mortal sin. For although he may not have expiated his punishment by that satisfaction, he does not incur the guilt of omission through neglecting to make satisfaction; even as he who receives the Eucharist without being conscious of a mortal sin of which he is guilty, does not incur the guilt of receiving unworthily. Reply to Objection 3: His intention was interrupted by his subsequent sin, so that it gives no virtue to the works done after that sin. Reply to Objection 4: Sufficient equalization is impossible both as to the Divine acceptation and as to equivalence: so that the argument proves nothing. Whether previous satisfaction begins to avail after man is restored to charity?Objection 1: It would seem that when a man has recovered charity his previous satisfaction begins to avail, because a gloss on Lev. 25:25, “If thy brother being impoverished,” etc., says that “the fruit of a man’s good works should be counted from the time when he sinned.” But they would not be counted, unless they derived some efficacy from his subsequent charity. Therefore they begin to avail after he recovers charity. Objection 2: Further, as the efficacy of satisfaction is hindered by sin, so the efficacy of Baptism is hindered by insincerity. Now Baptism begins to avail when insincerity ceases. Therefore satisfaction begins to avail when sin is taken away.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  I pulled the door open and stepped outside and began walking fast down the street. I passed a few shops and then I heard her voice behind me again— “Thomas!” I quickened my pace. She kept following and calling out to me. I looked over my shoulder. She was running, slowly and clumsily, but running. I squeezed the overnight bag against my side with my elbow and broke into a run myself. The two of us ran down the street, twenty, twenty-five feet apart. I was holding back, just loping along. “Thomas!” she said, “Thomas, wait!” and every time she spoke I felt a tug from this voice so full of care. I felt she knew all of me, all my foolishness and trouble, and wanted only to take hold of me and set me right. The sidewalk was crowded. If the men and women we ran through had thought there was any reason to stop me, they would have. If she had yelled “Thief!” just once, I would have been mobbed on the spot. Everyone must have thought it was a family affair. They must have heard what I heard, the voice of a mother trying to reach her child. I turned the corner at the end of the block, and this somehow broke her hold on me. All the speed I’d been saving seemed to come to me at once. I tore down to the next corner, turned, turned again half a block later and ran through an alley. Only then did I slow down and look behind me. She could not possibly have kept up, but I needed to look to be sure. She wasn’t there. I had lost her. I believed I had lost her forever, but in this I was mistaken. The alley ended across the street from a diner. The street was under repair. No cars, only a few pedestrians. I waited for a time, trying to get my wind back, then crossed over to the diner. It was almost empty. The cashier grunted when I came in but didn’t look up from the tablet he was writing on. I walked to the back and locked myself in the men’s room. I leaned against the door. I stood there, just letting myself breathe. My eyes burned with sweat and my shirt was soaked through. My throat was raw. I bent my head to the faucet and let the water run into my mouth. Then I stripped to the waist and bathed myself with paper towels. When I was dry, I took off my pants and stuffed them into the overnight bag with my shirt and my glasses. I took out my Boy Scout uniform and slowly, carefully, unfolded it and put it on. I ran a damp tissue over my shoes, then straightened up and inspected myself.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  He had gone insane, I could see that, and it seemed to me that my only chance was to go insane too. Still rolling, we hit the boggy swale at the foot of the bank. He got on top of me, I got on top of him, he got back on top of me. My news bag had armored me well when I was on my feet but now it was heavy with mud and twisted around my shoulders. I couldn’t get off a good swing. All I could do was hold on to Arthur and try to keep him from getting one off at me. He struggled, then abruptly collapsed on top of me. He was panting for breath. His weight pressed me into the mud. I gathered myself and bucked him off. It took everything I had. We lay next to each other, gasping strenuously. Pepper tugged at my pant leg and growled. Arthur stirred. He got to his feet and started up the bank. I followed him, thinking it was all over, but when he got to the top he turned and said, “Take it back.” The other boys were watching me. I shook my head. Arthur pushed me and I began sliding down the bank. “Take it back,” he yelled. Pepper followed me in my descent, yapping and lunging. There hadn’t been a moment since the fight began when Pepper wasn’t worrying me in some way, if only to bark and bounce around me, and finally it was this more than anything else that made me lose heart. It wounded my spirit to have a dog against me. I liked dogs. I liked dogs more than I liked people, and I expected them to like me back. I started up the bank again, Pepper still at my heels. “Take it back,” Arthur said. “Okay,” I said. “Say it.” “Okay . I take it back.” “No. Say, ‘You’re not a sissy.’” I looked up at him and the other two boys. There was pleasure and scorn on their faces, but not on his. He wore, instead, an expression of such earnestness that it seemed impossible to refuse him what he asked. I said, “You’re not a sissy.” He called Pepper and turned away. When I got to the top he was walking toward home. The other two boys were excited, restless, twitching with the blows they’d imagined striking. They wanted to talk about the fight, but I had lost interest in it. My clothes were caked with mud. My news bag, full of mud and ruined papers, pulled down on me. My ear hurt. I trudged homeward. Pearl was sitting on the steps, eating something. She looked me over as I walked up. “You’re in Dutch,” she said. MY MOTHER HAD me undress in the utility room and take a shower. Then she sat me down in the kitchen and dabbed iodine on some scratches I’d picked up, probably from rolling around on the road.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  A couple of nights later she dreamed that she and I embrace and gently kiss. But what starts off sweetly turns to terror when my mouth opens wider and wider and I begin to devour her. “I struggle and struggle,” she reported, “but cannot wrench free.” “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” Thus, as John Donne observed nearly four hundred years ago in these now familiar lines, the funeral bell tolls not only for the dead but also for you and me—survivors, yes, but for a limited time. This insight is as old as history. Four thousand years ago in a Babylonian epic, Gilgamesh realized that the death of his friend Enkidu foreshadowed his own: “Enkidu has become dark and cannot hear me. When I die shall I not be like unto Enkidu? Sorrow enters my heart. I am afraid of death.” The death of the other confronts us with our own death. Is this a good thing? Should such a confrontation be encouraged in the psychotherapy of grief? Question: Why scratch where it doesn’t itch? Why fan the flame of death anxiety in bereaved individuals already bowed low by loss? Answer: Because the confrontation with one’s own death may generate positive personal change. My first awareness of the therapeutic potential of an encounter with death in the therapy of grief occurred decades ago when a sixty-year-old man described to me his terrible nightmare the night after learning that his wife’s cervical cancer had dangerously metastasized and was no longer treatable. In the nightmare he’s running through an old deteriorating house—broken windows, crumbling tiles, leaking roof—pursued by a Frankenstein monster. He defends himself: he hits, he kicks, he stabs, he throws the monster off the roof. But—and this is the central message of the dream—the monster is unstoppable: it instantly reappears and continues the pursuit. The monster is no stranger to him, having first invaded his dreams when he was a boy of ten, shortly after his father’s funeral. It terrorized him for months and eventually vanished, only to reappear fifty years later at the news of his wife’s fatal illness. When I asked for his thoughts about the dream, his first words were: “I’ve got a hundred thousand miles on me as well.” I understood then that the death of the other—first of his father and now the impending death of his wife—confronted him with his own. The Frankenstein monster was a personification of death, and the deteriorating house signified his bodily aging and breakdown. With that interview I believed I had discovered a wonderful new concept with significant implications for the psychotherapy of grief.