Chris Hedges:
Dr. Judith Herman in her classic work, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From
Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, which we discussed last week, detailed three stages
to recovery. In the first stage, the survivor focuses on
the complex and demanding task of establishing safety in the present, with a goal of protection
from further violence. Safety gives the survivor the space to recover
from the terror that reduced him or her to abject submission and to regain a sense of
agency. In the second stage of recovery, the survivor
revisits the past to grieve and make meaning of the trauma. Out of this grief is forged a new identity
that does not deny the past, nor allow it to define his or her identity. As Dr. Herman writes, "Social support is a
powerful predictor of good recovery, while social isolation is toxic. People cannot feel safe alone, and they cannot
mourn and make meaning alone." The third stage sees the survivor refocus
on the present and future, expanding and deepening his or her relationships with a wider community
and the possibilities in life. Some survivors see their own suffering as
part of a much larger social problem. They join with others, including other survivors,
to work to build a better world. Robert Jay Lifton calls this a "survivor mission". In Dr. Herman's new book, Truth and Repair:
How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice, which we will discuss today, she adds justice as
the fourth stage to recovery. "If trauma is truly a social problem," she
writes, "then recovery cannot simply be a private individual matter. The wounds of trauma are not merely those
caused by the perception of violence and exploitation. The actions or inactions of bystanders, all
those who are complicit in or who prefer not to know about the abuse or who blame the victims,
often cause deeper wounds. "Full healing," she adds, "because it originates
in a fundamental injustice, requires a full hearing within the community to repair through
some measure of justice the trauma survivors have endured." Joining me to discuss her new book, Truth
and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice is Dr. Judith Herman, a professor
of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Co-Founder of the Victims of Violence Program. Last week we talked about the effects, in
particular, of incest. We talked about the importance, as you write
in your book, of consciousness-raising groups and how vital that was to your own work. I want to talk now about how people pull themself
out of that trauma. What are the mechanisms that they use to recover? We mentioned some of them, so let's go through
them. And then let's talk about... and I fully agree
with you that a vital link that is often overlooked is a sense of rebuilding a society where justice
is at its core, especially for those have been victimized by abuse or injustice. Judith Lewis Herman:
Well, I think the take-home message about the harm of trauma is that it shames and isolates
people. Recovery has to take place in relationships. When people feel reconnected to their communities
and re-accepted in their communities, then the shame is relieved and the isolation is
relieved, and that really creates the platform for healing. One of the things we discovered early on from
a therapeutic point of view, and this applied whether we're talking about combat veterans
or whether we're talking about incest survivors or rape survivors, is that putting survivors
together in a group often was tremendously healing and therapeutic. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War developed
what they call rap groups. And when Robert Jay Lifton studied Vietnam
veterans, he did so by getting involved in leading rap groups. Sometimes they were self-help groups. And he, as a psychiatrist, and as what he
called a witnessing professional, offered his services to facilitate people coming together. And the comment was that they felt understood. They felt they belonged. They felt other people got what they had been
through, whereas they weren't sure that civilians could. And similarly with sexual assault survivors. In the company of other survivors, they felt
not only understood and accepted, but they also felt they had something to contribute. So they weren't just in the position of seeking
help, damaged people see seeking help, but they had caring and compassion and understanding
to offer others, and that was also very liberating. Chris Hedges:
There is a difference, though, as you write in the book, between the way society views
veterans, we accept their trauma, and the way women who have endured sexual assault
are viewed. You quote, was it Catherine Mackinnon? Is that right? About how rape in the United States is not
prohibited. I think she uses the word it's moderated. Judith Lewis Herman:
It's regulated. Chris Hedges:
Regulated. Regulated. Judith Lewis Herman:
Yeah. If a blonde, virginal White woman is raped
by a Black stranger on the street, that is a felony. And the justice system, such as it is will,
spare no expense to track him down and string him up. But that's not what most rape is about. Most rape victims are assaulted by people
they know; family, friends, bosses, dates, ex-boyfriends, et cetera, and most rape is
intraracial. Of course, Black women are much more frequently
raped by White men than the converse. And in those cases, it's, "Well, what was
she wearing?" And, "Why did she go to that party? And, "How many beers did she have? And, "Why did she accept a ride home?" Chris Hedges:
Well, you talk about the court system and how traumatic it is for rape survivors to
enter into the court system because the defense counsels will consciously re-provoke the trauma,
that it's really awful. Judith Lewis Herman:
Of course, most cases never even make it as far as a court. In fact, most cases aren't even reported to
police. The high-end estimates are maybe 20 to 30%
of sexual assaults are reported to the police because most women know that they will be
treated as suspects rather than victims. Their cases will be blown off. And even if they are properly investigated
and do result in a prosecution... I like to say that if you wanted on purpose
to design a setting that would exacerbate the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder,
a court of law would probably be ideal because it's an adversarial system. It's a hostile system. Pretty much any amount of verbal cruelty is
allowed. The victim is just a witness. The victim has no say over whether or not
the charges will be brought and how the case will be presented. And of course, since reminders of trauma worsen
the symptoms of PTSD, having to confront one's perpetrator and then be cross-examined, not
to mention facing the physical threats that may come from the perpetrator or his friends
or his family, it's pretty scary. A lot of survivors talk about the second rape
in the justice system. Chris Hedges:
One of the things I found fascinating from your work is that they don't necessarily want
money. It's not money they're seeking. Judith Lewis Herman:
No, and it's not punishment. For my new book, I interviewed 30 survivors
of various forms of gender violence; 26 women and four men who survived childhood abuse,
domestic violence, sexual trafficking, sexual harassment, sexual assault. And I chose that group both because those
are the people I've worked with all my life, and also because in terms of prevalence worldwide,
the United Nations estimates that just gender-based violence is the most common and endemic human
rights violation in the world. But my argument, I think, applies in any situation
where the dominance of one group over another group is a matter of a longstanding tradition,
whether that's based on race, caste, class, religion, or gender. The stereotype of survivors is that they're
going to want revenge. That's why the state has to be the injured
party rather than the survivor in criminal court, because the survivors will just be
out for blood. But in fact, what everybody I interviewed
wanted most was truth and repair. They wanted the bystanders, the community,
to validate, to recognize the truth of their story, not just the facts, but also the harm
that had been done. The backup argument is always, "Yeah, it happens,
so get over it. Why are you still whining?" And so the facts, the harm and the wrong,
the fact that this was a crime, and they want the shame put on the shoulders of the perpetrator
rather than on their shoulders. Beyond that, what they really wanted was for
the community to do what was needed to help them recover and to prevent this from happening
again. And so they wanted the community to step up
to set limits on the offender and make sure he couldn't do it again. But beyond that, they weren't big on punishment. Chris Hedges:
Well, you even had cases in the book of women who don't want... I think there was a case where she wanted
the perpetrator to pay a symbolic fee of $30 to a rape relief center. They didn't even want the money. Judith Lewis Herman:
Well, a lot of survivors will feel very conflicted about... Just to be clear, in criminal court, the metric
of justice is punishment. In civil court, the metric is money, and the
standard of proof is not as high, and the scales are more balanced because the offender's
liberty is not at stake, but the metric is money damages. And a lot of survivors felt very mixed about
it because, on the one hand, they'd spent a fortune on doctors and therapy and lost
opportunities, like dropping out of grad school. And on the other hand, it felt like dirty
money. They didn't want to feel like they'd been
bought. And this was especially true for women who'd
been trafficked and had actually been bought. The survivor you quoted was an artist who
was raped by an ex-boyfriend when she went to his apartment to retrieve some of her artwork. Her case was turned down for prosecution because... I mean, she did report to police, and the
prosecutors didn't want to touch it because they had had sex before. He said it was consensual? So it was he said/she said. So she sued him in civil court. She wanted him to give $30 to the rape crisis
center because that represented the 30 pieces of silver for which Jesus was betrayed. And I said, "But he told me he had a lot of
money. Why didn't you ask him to give them 30,000?" She said, "I didn't think of that." So yeah, the idea that survivors are just
out for the money, that's a sexist stereotype. Chris Hedges:
I want to talk about forgiveness. I had a great professor who told me, "Only
God forgives." And you quote David Konstan, the classical
scholar, who talks about that issue in his book, Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a
Moral Idea. Let's talk about forgiveness. Judith Lewis Herman:
Well, that's the other thing that most of the survivors I've talked to were not big
on. There were a few
to whom it really mattered. I'd like to quote one of them, who is a Protestant
minister, Anne Marie Hunter. She had been herself a victim of domestic
violence, and now she works with clergy to try to get them to take this seriously and
not just advise the woman to turn the other cheek, to keep the peace in the family. She said, "Rather than bringing victims to
forgiveness, let's work on bringing perpetrators to contrition and change behavior." She said, "It's just so much easier to pressure
victims to forgive and forget than it is to actually confront what needs to be done to
change the culture so that this behavior is not as endemic as indicated in the statistics
you quoted." But some survivors really cared about forgiveness,
and they meant two different things by it. There were the very rare survivors who felt
that forgiveness had happened because there had been a true reconciliation, a true I and
thou moment where the perpetrator had been remorseful and had apologized genuinely and
had made amends. And when that actually happens, it's very
rare, but when it happens, forgiveness is like a spontaneous emotion. You don't have to work at it. One survivor... I quoted a young woman named Rosie McMahan
had said, "It was like I was just lifted out of my chair. It was such a relief." But for many other survivors where that was
never going to happen. They worked hard on forgiveness. And what they meant by that was sort of a
unilateral letting go of resentment and anger and bitterness, because they often felt as
though that kind of anger and bitterness was a kind of a residue of the offender's hatred
that they were stuck with. It was like a foreign body. I'm not a hateful person. The artist I quoted who wanted the 30 pieces
of silver returned, a woman named Amy Bradford. She described how she would have these nightmares
in which a dinosaur came and stomped on the rapist. In the dreams, she was crowing. And when she woke up, she felt terrible. She was like, "I'm not that kind of person. I'm not a violent person. That felt awful." So for many survivors, they worked on letting
go of their anger and rage and so on, and bitterness, but in the absence of any apology
or amends, that was a long process of grieving and letting go. Chris Hedges:
Well, you write, "Forgiveness must be earned by the practice of repentance." So it has to be earned. Judith Lewis Herman:
Yeah, yeah. Well, and as I learned from David Konstan's
book, it's not in the Bible. Chris Hedges:
No, it's not. Judith Lewis Herman:
It's interpersonal. I mean, God's forgiveness, yes, but not interpersonal
forgiveness. Because in the Old Testament view and early
New Testament views, only God had the wisdom and understanding to recognize true remorse
and true repentance, and therefore, only God had the grace to forgive. Chris Hedges:
And we should also add that incest is also not condemned in the Bible. Judith Lewis Herman:
Well, there's that. Yes. Chris Hedges:
It's a mixed bag, the Bible, having studied it at Harvard Divinity School. Judith Lewis Herman:
Yes. Yes. Well, under certain circumstances, if the
father's seed... the needs of the patriarchy are paramount. Let's put it that way. Chris Hedges:
Let's talk a little bit about, I remember Melissa Farley once saying that, "The trauma
that you experience in war"... and this is excluding moral injury of which is its own
category, which you read about, but, "The trauma that someone like myself experienced
in war is finally not comparable to the trauma of a woman who has been raped because our
bodies were not penetrated." Would you agree? Judith Lewis Herman:
Well, strictly speaking, I don't think that's always true. Chris Hedges:
Well, no, it's not. But let's say that distinction is made. Would you agree that the trauma is worse? Judith Lewis Herman:
I hate to get into this comparative of whose trauma is worse business. I do think that the trauma of sexual assault
for men and women is of a different order of magnitude from physical assault, say, because
of the degree of humiliation involved. Not just the physical pain, but the defilement,
if you will, the level of hatred and contempt that goes into a sexual assault. But in general, I think it's a zero-sum game,
this trauma is worse. Chris Hedges:
This is one of my favorite paragraphs in the book where you compare the Roman Catholic
Church to the sex trade. Go ahead. Judith Lewis Herman:
Yes. Chris Hedges:
I totally agree with you, by the way. I'm totally with you on this. Judith Lewis Herman:
Well, just in terms of international scale and international wealth, I think they are
comparable. Chris Hedges:
Well, but also in terms of what they've done. Judith Lewis Herman:
Well, there's that. Yes, I mean, we're not even getting into the
inquisition and all that, but just the more current practices. Chris Hedges:
You do bring up towards the end of the book, you always put it in quotes, "sex work". I remember interviewing Rachel Moran, who
wrote her book on prostitution. She had been a prostituted woman. She said, "It was being raped for a living." And you're not buying, I think, correctly,
the kind of fashionable embrace of "sex work". Can you talk about that? Judith Lewis Herman:
Well, sure. I think this has been a debate within feminism
for a while. I think there are good intentions on both
sides. I think there's a desire to de-stigmatize
prostitution by calling it sex work and just comparing it to any other kind of work. But the policy consequences there would be
full of decriminalization, which means not only decriminalizing the prostituted person,
the person who's being sold, but the sex industry, which is an international criminal organization
that preys upon the most vulnerable women and children of both sexes, but especially-
Chris Hedges: Who are usually people of color, poor people
of color? Judith Lewis Herman:
People in poverty, people of color, and abused kids, runaways. I mean, a pimp can spot a runaway at a hundred
paces, and their recruitment techniques are all about promising to be the daddy they never
had. Chris Hedges:
When you talk about it, you liken it to the way cults recruit. Judith Lewis Herman:
No, they use the same methods, of course, of control. Love bombing at first, and then very quickly
the imposition of the same methods of coercive control that torturers use; violence, but
also control of the body, what she eats, when she sleeps, what she wears, forcing people
to do things that they find dirty and degrading, and then isolating people from any other sources
of support. I mean, they teach each other the same methods,
the same way that clandestine police forces in our CIA taught dictatorships in Latin America. They're the same methods. So no, I do not think that the sex trade is
harmless, and I do not think it should be decriminalized. I have a lot of good data backing me up. A number of countries now have followed another
policy, which decriminalizes the person who's being sold, but still criminalizes the pimp,
the brothel keeper, and the John, the sex buyer. Chris Hedges:
This is the Nordic model. Judith Lewis Herman:
This is the Nordic model pioneered in Norway, Sweden, and now adopted in several other countries. They have very good outcome data, whether
you're talking about diminishing prostitution overall, diminishing violence against prostituted
people, diminishing murders of prostituted people. Whereas the countries that have gone with
basically licensing brothels, like Germany and the Netherlands and so on, there's been
no diminution in trafficking or violence or murders. Chris Hedges:
Great. We're going to stop there. That was Dr. Judith Herman, author of Truth
and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice. I want to thank The Real News Network and
its production team: Cameron Granadino, David Hebden, and Kayla Rivara. You can find me at chrishedges.substack.com.
