IJFAB: International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics

An unintended consequence of the coronavirus pandemic has been renewed interest in trauma research. In Merleau-Ponty and a Phenomenology of PTSD: Hidden Ghosts of Traumatic Memory, MaryCatherine McDonald argues that the prevailing trauma research model is “episodic,” meaning that trauma research spikes in the aftermath of significant events (e.g., wars, pandemics). The problem with this model, McDonald contends, is that once the particular event or circumstance loses its everyday salience, also lost is interest in trauma research. Arguably, then, our understanding of trauma is very narrow, if it is indeed the case that the sole point of reference for our trauma archetypes is limited to “major” traumatic events (e.g., 9/11). With this in mind, McDonald’s book is a timely philosophical contribution to the field of trauma studies. Likewise, it reminds philosophers of psychiatry that PTSD continues to raise more questions than answers.

This book is aimed at a general audience, but it may also be of interest to psychiatric clinicians who are curious about the applications of phenomenological philosophy. For philosophers of psychiatry and phenomenologists, even though this book raises excellent questions, I fear that by aiming at a broad audience, McDonald’s analysis may fail to satisfy. In this review, I will first sketch out what I believe to be the central arguments of the book, following which I will offer two brief remarks about the book, and I will conclude by raising an objection to McDonald’s methodological approach.

Psychological and neuroscientific investigations about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are abundant. McDonald’s book, however, rightly argues that neither neuroscience nor psychology alone can exhaust our understanding of PTSD. According to McDonald, to fully flesh out the phenomenon of PTSD, in addition to psychology and neuroscience, we need a third perspective, namely, phenomenological philosophy. McDonald is prone to reiterating that these three fields of study are complimentary, not antagonistic (I will return to this point further on). McDonald argues that there are four ways in which phenomenology can inform the scientific study of PTSD: it tells us what it is like to experience PTSD; it offers a nondualistic ontology of embodiment; it views humans as fundamentally adaptive. The fourth phenomenological insight is that [End Page 187] trauma does not assail the body or the mind but rather affects the way in which (embodied) experience meaningfully hangs together.

It is worth remarking that this a short book coming in under 130 pages. Consequently, McDonald must cover a considerable amount of theoretical ground if her argument is to succeed. Over the course of five chapters, McDonald attempts to weave together the history of trauma, the psychology and neuroscience of trauma, and the phenomenology of trauma. Chapter one sketches out a brief historical account of the way in which psychology and neuroscience have conceptualized trauma treatment and classification. McDonald highlights some of the inhumane and cruel treatments that persons with PTSD have been made to endure in our not so distant past. The chapter also introduces readers to the phenomenological philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, a formidable challenge that McDonald manages satisfactorily. The chapter concludes with the phenomenological claim that, if we reduce PTSD (and behavior in general) to objective measurement, we will continue to misunderstand the phenomenon of PTSD.

Chapter two considers the way in which traumatic memory is conceptualized within each discipline (i.e., psychology, neuroscience, phenomenology). McDonald again argues that the phenomenon of PTSD cannot be understood from the vantage point of a single method; a combined approach of psychology, neuroscience, and phenomenology “is not just a way to approach combat PTSD [sic], it is the way we must approach this problem” (37, emphasis original). In chapter three, McDonald employs Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology to contend that trauma is an adaptive phenomenon, one that implies vital strength for survival rather than personal weakness or moral failure. The chapter draws heavily from two of Merleau-Ponty’s well-known case studies: a brain-injured man...