We recently talked about several veterans' stories of combat, and how their telling or re-telling of their stories allowed them to achieve some degree of catharsis about what they'd been through. (The blog entry that discusses that is linked here.) According to Arthur Egendorf, that's exactly the point. He writes:
“Retelling one’s story is an ancient cure. It allows people to take a more livable stance toward what they’ve experienced, one that may not have been possible at the time the events originally took place. Retelling is likely to allow us to feel “more human” afterward, for recapturing the past in a sensitive way, often through the process of mourning, enables us to set aside our fearful self-protectiveness. In this way we overcome the greatest burden we carry away from shocking experiences: the limits we’ve placed on our capacity to care.”
-- Source: Healing from the War: Trauma & Transformation after Vietnam, by Arthur Egendorf. Boston: Shambhala Press (1986)
