In this important book, Suzette Henke finds evidence that women often use writing in order to heal the wounds of psychological trauma. She terms this method scriptotherapy," the process of writing out and writing through traumatic experience in the mode of therapeutic re-enactment. Shattered Subjects explores the autobiographical writings of six twentieth-century women authors - Colette, Hilda Doolittle, Anais Nin, Janet Frame, Audre Lorde, and Sylvia Fraser. They provide startling evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder precipitated by rape, incest, childhood sexual abuse, grief, unwanted pregnancy, pregnancy-loss, or a severe illness that threatens the integrity of the body. Suzette A. Henke is Thruston B. Morton Professor of Literary Studies at the University of Louisville. |