Early Explorations of How Trauma Affects Imagination

After our conversation last week, I tried to take a new approach to when and how I write my blog post.  I read the text yesterday, and had some ideas about what and how to write the piece for this week.  I decided to give myself a 24 hour (probably not enough time) "incubation period" after this experience, which Vygotsky cites from Ribot, but alas--it's 24 hours later and as I come back to the text, my ideas feel less organized and less ready to articulate than they did yesterday:).

Here goes nothing: As I read the chapter yesterday, and pondered Vygotsky's points about how imagination is determined by the accrual of experiences in a person's life, I began to think about the ways in which trauma may play into this.  That is, what affects (emotional, behavioral, and particularly on the combinatorial imagination) does trauma have if, through a Vygotskian lens, "imagination primarily uses the data provided by external impressions." (p. 30ish)

This idea feels very underdeveloped in my mind at this time, and I assume there is extant literature about the the relationship between trauma and children's (and adults') imaginations, but this post will explore the aforementioned relationship through a Vygotskyian lens.  I may revisit this same topic next week after I've thought about it more and had a chance to chat with folks in class a bit.

Vygotsky notes that, "throughout a child's education, the shaping of the imagination not only has the particular significance of exercising and developing a particular function, but also possesses a general significance that is reflected in all the child's behavior." He goes on to quote Ribot in stating that "creative imagination permeates all life personal and social, abstract and practical in all its forms; it is omnipresent." (p.42)

He also acknowledges early on the the piece that the impression of past experiences are retained in the brain, which facilitates a reproduction of these experiences.  It is indeed rather obvious that the impressions (memory) left in the brain from traumatic experiences would shape a person's behavior.  As humans are uniquely oriented to the future, the ways in which the orientation and the expectations for future experiences (which involves imagination) are shaped by past traumas is something worth exploring further.  For example, if a child experiences a series of adult figures entering and leaving their life throughout their formative years, or a series of violent occurrences, their imagined idea of what the future will hold would be shaped by these occurrences.  That is not to say that through other social experiences and happenings that their imagination would not be capable of also envisioning a hopeful and better future devoid of former traumas, but one would think that their creative process of living, planning for the future, and co-operating with other humans would be impacted, and would hold some sort of risk-averse or aggravated tendencies that are shaped by the earlier traumatic social experiences. 

Am I right in interpreting from this chapter that for some, the traumas experienced could lead their plastic imagination to replicate past traumas in some manifestation similar to those they previously experienced, while for others as a result of other social coefficients could potentially use their imagination in ways to avoid the replication of previous traumas--a sort of creative propensity for risk mitigation planning through the use of their imagination? This relates to Vygotsky's point about there being a "double; mutual dependence between imagination and experience." I'm still a little murky on this piece.  

Perhaps more interesting is exploring the ways in which trauma affects the creative imagination.  Vygotsky explored this a bit in the section on the songs of what he referred to as "street children," but for the sake of this post, I will simply refer to as "children."  Simply put, through a Vygotskyian lens, the children's accumulated previous experiences in the world affect the outcome of their creative efforts.  Well yeah...that makes sense. According to LV, the children's songs "reflect the dark and difficult aspects of their lives," reflecting a natural response to "unrelieved difficulty."  This goes back to the dissociative and associative processes overviewed earlier in the chapter.  "What the child sees and hears thus provides the first points of support for [their] future creation."  Of course the accumulated experiences of an individual shape the outcomes of their creative efforts and imagination, but it is worth exploring exactly how and why certain pieces and parts are retained during the process of dissociation, and then what later associations take place from the component parts (and why) that lead to the final creative/ artistic product.  I know some interventions exist where art is used for therapeutic purposes.  I wonder if these include cooperative art pieces and dialogue between victims of trauma?  This could be an interesting and perhaps helpful way for victims to co-operate, and create new associations that could help them overcome their past traumas in some way.

More to come on this.