John Woodall
In this article, Dr. Woodall discusses the effect of trauma on the human identity. He focuses on three aspects of the many effects of trauma on identity; The rigid Identity, The Shattered identity, and the compassionate identity. The compassionate identity, is the desired one. Woodall says “ this third identity is purely a result of ethical choice. . . It rests in a fully conscious assessment of the implications of freedom… It requires a choice to live by a standard of human dignity that is at once highly personal and universal.” He describes the five stages involved in the process of acquiring a compassionate identity, and concludes that art therapy plays a great role in creating experiences that “expand the human heart to compassion.”
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Author bio |
John Woodall, M.D. is a Research Fellow at the department of Psychiatry, Harvard University. He specializes in the treatment of severe trauma, especially victims of war and refugees. He has run trauma clinics, coordinated training programs for clinicians from war zones on behalf of USAID, and spent nearly a year in the Balkans developing local responses to the post-war reconstruction effort in that region. Woodall’s clinical work has informed his academic research into the consequences of severe trauma on the formation of the social identity and ethics of survivors. |