Q&A feature

REVIEW

The book, ‘Triumphing Over Trauma: Journeys Beyond Woundedness’ by Pamela Alexandra Trotman is an important contribution to the advance of emotional health in general and to address mitigating the impact of child trauma specifically. Last year, it was recognised that adverse childhood experiences contributing to causation of nearly 50% of mental disorders. The current book presents a practical and implementable way of addressing the child trauma. Author has coined a new term, ‘finding one’s voice’ to address ‘woundedness’. 



Based on her personal childhood trauma, (“tragedy had become the hallmarks of the forty wo years my life. However, the real challenges were not the disasters themselves but finding ways to overcome their potentially life-shattering impact”). 



What the book presents, is a novel way, to address the damage of traumatic experiences. Ms. Trotman, achieves this by combining good science and personal experiences. Specifically, she addresses the different components of the ‘woundedness’, namely, denial, rejection, injustice, moral injury, loss and grief, shame and guilt, and betrayal. Each of this is described with personal stories of both the experience and measures to overcome. There are two full narratives of interventions which demonstrate both the feasibility and effectiveness of the approaches to address woundedness. 



Author is open to the benefits to herself (When I set out all those decades ago to assist clients to overcome their trauma, little did I realise I was embarking on a journey to ‘find my voice’ and in doing so, how to use it so it would be heard’). 



The innovation of Ms. Trotman, is very similar to the contribution of Dr.Victor Frankl, and his book , ‘Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning’. Dr.Frankl change the discourse on ‘adverse life experiences’ and brought to attention, the value of ‘purpose of life’.  Ms.Trotman’s book and ‘‘finding one’s voice’ has a similar potential. 



Reading the book has been a valuable experience for me. I am glad that I got to read it at the point of life that I was living.

Following the diagnosis of cancer in 2013, I have been working towards self-care for emotional health of persons living with a diagnosis of cancer and their caregivers. The lessons from the book, ‘Triumphing Over Trauma’ has given me new insights into my future work in healing the wounds of cancer diagnosis and treatment.

There are three responses I have to summarise my feelings.



• Firstly, APPRECIATION, for the important and innovative approach offered by Ms.Trotman to address a complex problem.
• Secondly, ADMIRATION, for the way Ms.Trotman, has synthesised the personal life history, professional work and policy development. Such synthesis is the need of the times in the broader field of mental health to address a number of issues.
• Thirdly, a feeling of HOPE, that adapting methods shared by Ms.Trotman, it is possible to master ‘woundedness’ of all types (trauma, domestic violence, losses, illnesses, old age, refugee status etc) that people experience during the life cycle.
•  Lastly, I am privileged to know Ms.Trotman, through a serendipitous  virtual meeting,(I shared a platform on an international meeting on Zoom in July 2020), and look forward to communicate and enrich  myself by sharing of mutual experiences.