Trauma as Embodied Belatedness: Reading The Body Keeps the Score Through the Lens of Caruth’s Trauma Theory

Abstract

This research analyzes the representation of trauma and memory in The Body Keeps the Score (2014) from the lens of Cathy Caruth’s idea of Trauma as belated experience as developed in her book Trauma: Exploration in Memory. The Body Keeps the Score argues about how trauma lives in our bodies and how survivors relive the experiences when exposed to triggers instead of just remembering the trauma. This process agrees with the concept of Cathy Caruth’s idea of trauma as experience of Belatedness, meaning those traumatic events are not fully understood at the moment but return later, even after the later repetitions they are not finished. This research uses qualitative textual analysis of The body Keeps the Score but from a specific lens of trauma as belated experience. This research also analyzes how our body remembers unclaimed traumatic experiences in our unconscious mind. By studying Van der Kolk's book The Body Keeps the Score through the lens of Caruth, we can dive deeper into trauma theories and also explain more clearly how trauma changes mind and body. This study debates that trauma is not just about past but it has continuous effect on mind and body. It also represents how The Body Keeps the Score explains trauma as a changing event for our body and brain’s processing and reaction to triggers.

Keywords: Belated experience, unconscious mind, qualitative textual analysis