Are you having a phobic response to your trauma?: Members Only

cw: skin cutting under paywall

Is it possible to do more with trauma than heal it? Referencing Avgi Saketopoulou in a recent essay about fascism and anti-trans sentiment, Willa Smart and Beckett Warzer expand on the psychoanalyst’s preferred subject, the traumatophiliac:

To make good use of one’s traumatic history means to “[enter] more deeply into its patterns of repetition,” rather than seeking to heal or eliminate trauma—a phobic response that leads to compulsive repetition rather than the possibility of transformation.

Has a phobic response to your trauma only made your distress worse? In attempting to dig the bullet from your flesh, have you instead pushed it deeper into your body?