Continue  to provide Paragraphs for close-read and analysis of   “Chapter 10 Reconnection”  per outline. 

1) Provide thoughtfulness and insight and provide concrete references, quotations, specific details, and engagement that go beyond generic summaries.


Herman’s Chapter 10 text are below: 

H
AVING COME TO TERMS with the traumatic past, the survivor faces the task of creating a future. She has mourned the old self that the trauma destroyed; now she must develop a new self. Her relationships have been tested and forever changed by the trauma; now she must develop new relationships. The old beliefs that gave meaning to her life have been challenged; now she must find anew a sustaining faith. These are the tasks of the third stage of recovery. In accomplishing this work, the survivor reclaims her world.
Survivors whose personality has been shaped in the traumatic environ-ment often feel at this stage of recovery as though they are refugees entering a new country. For political exiles, this may be literally true; but for many others, such as battered women or survivors of childhood abuse, the psychological experience can only be compared to immigra¬tion. They must build a new life within a radically different culture from the one they have left behind. Emerging from an environment of total control, they feel simultaneously the wonder and uncertainty of freedom. They speak of losing and regaining the world. The psychiatrist Michael Stone, drawing on his work with incest survivors, describes the immensity of this adaptive task: “All victims of incest have, by definition, been taught that the strong can do as they please, without regard for conven¬tion. . . . ^-education is often indicated, pertaining to what is typical, average, wholesome, and ‘normal’ in the intimate life of ordinary people. Victims of incest tend to be woefully ignorant of these matters, owing to their skewed and secretive early environments. Although victims in their original homes, they are like strangers in a foreign country, once ‘safely’ outside.”1 
The issues of the first stage of recovery are often revisited during the third. Once again the survivor devotes energy to the care of her body, her immediate environment, her material needs, and her relationships with others. But while in the first stage the goal was simply to secure a defensive position of basic safety, by the third stage the survivor is ready to engage more actively in the world. From her newly created safe base she can now venture forth. She can establish an agenda. She can recover some of her aspirations from the time before the trauma, or perhaps for the first time she can discover her own ambitions.
Helplessness and isolation are the core experiences of psychological trauma. Empowerment and reconnection are the core experiences of recovery. In the third stage of recovery, the traumatized person recog¬nizes that she has been a victim and understands the effects of her victimization. Now she is ready to incorporate the lessons of her trau¬matic experience into her life. She is ready to take concrete steps to increase her sense of power and control, to protect herself against future danger, and to deepen her alliances with those whom she has learned to trust. A survivor of childhood sexual abuse describes her arrival at this stage: “I decided, ‘Okay, I’ve had enough of walking around like I’d like to brutalize everyone who looks at me wrong. I don’t have to feel like that any more.’ Then I thought, ‘How would I like to feel.’ I wanted to feel safe in the world. I wanted to feel powerful. And so I focused on what was working in my life, in the ways I was taking power in real-life situations.”2
LEARNING TO FIGHT
Taking power in real-life situations often involves a conscious choice to face danger. By this stage of recovery, survivors understand that their post-traumatic symptoms represent a pathological exaggeration of the normal responses to danger. They are often keenly aware of their con¬tinued vulnerability to threats and reminders of the trauma. Rather than passively accepting these reliving experiences, survivors may choose ac¬tively to engage their fears. On one level, the choice to expose oneself to danger can be understood as yet another reenactment of trauma. Like reenactment, this choice is an attempt to master the traumatic experience; unlike reenactment, however, it is undertaken consciously, in a planned and methodical manner, and is therefore far more likely to succeed.
For those who have never learned the basics of physical self-defense, this instruction can become a method of both psychological mastery and physiological reconditioning. For women, it is also a repudiation of the social demand for the submissive, placating stance of traditional feminity. Melissa Soalt, a therapist and instructor in self-defense for women, de¬scribes how her training program reconditions the response to threat through a graded series of exercises, in which instructors simulate increas¬ingly aggressive attacks that the students learn to repel:
Our goal is to have them taste fear but know that they can fight back anyway. By the end of the first class, the sense of power starts to outweigh the fear—or at least runs neck and neck. They’re beginning to develop a sensation tolerance for the adrenaline. They get used to the feeling of their hearts pounding. We teach them how to breathe, how to settle under pressure. . . .
The fourth class is often the most intense. . . . It includes a really long fight, where the model muggers keep going and keep going and keep going. People get to a point where they feel like they can't on, but they have to. And so people discover that they have a reservoir deeper than they thought, even when they come out of that fight exhausted or crying and shaking like a leaf. That’s a very important breakthrough.3
By choosing to “taste fear” in these self-defense exercises, survivors put themselves in a position to reconstruct the normal physiological re¬sponses to danger, to rebuild the “action system” that was shattered and fragmented by the trauma. As a result, they face their world more confi¬dently: “Their heads are up, they’re breathing easier, their eye contact is better, they’re more grounded. . . . People will say when they’re walking down the street, they’re seeing people in the streets more, as opposed to looking down and cowering.”4
Other forms of disciplined, controlled challenges to fear may be equally important for survivors at this stage of recovery. For example, some treatment programs or self-help organizations offer wilderness trips as a carefully planned encounter with danger. These chosen experiences offer an opportunity to restructure the survivor’s maladaptive social re¬sponses as well as her physiological and psychological responses to fear. In the words of Jean Goodwin, who has participated as a therapist in wilderness trips with survivors of childhood abuse: “Magical or neurotic means of ensuring safety do not work in this setting. Being ‘sweet,’ not making demands, ‘disappearing,’ making excessive and narcissistic de¬mands, waiting for a rescuer: none of these maneuvers puts breakfast on the table. On the other hand, victims are surprised and delighted at the effectiveness of their realistic coping. In reality, they are able to learn to rappel down a cliff; their adult skills . . . outweigh the fears and low estimation of themselves that initially made them judge this impossible.”5
In the wilderness situation, as in the self-defense training, the survivor places herself in a position to experience the “fight or flight” response to danger, knowing that she will elect to fight. In so doing, she establishes a degree of control over her own bodily and emotional responses that reaffirms a sense of power. Not all danger is overwhelming; not all fear is terror. By voluntary, direct exposure, the survivor relearns the grada¬tions of fear. The goal is not to obliterate fear but to learn how to live with it, and even how to use it as a source of energy and enlightenment.
Beyond the confrontation with physical danger, survivors at this point often reevaluate their characteristic ways of coping with social situations that may not be overtly threatening but are nonetheless hos¬tile or subtly coercive. They may begin to question previous assump¬tions that permitted them to acquiesce in socially condoned violence or exploitation. Women question their traditional acceptance of a subordi¬nate role. Men question their traditional complicity in a hierarchy of dominance. Often these assumptions and behaviors have been so in¬grained that they have operated outside of awareness. Mardi Horowitz, describing the third stage of psychotherapy with a rape survivor, shows how the patient came to realize that her stereotypically feminine atti¬tudes and behavior put her at risk: “One unconscious attitude present before the stress event was that an erotic approach was the only way to get attention because she herself was so undeserving. . . . In work on the meaning of the rape, she became aware of this defective self-con¬cept and related rescue fantasies. She was able to revise her attitudes, including her automatic and unrealistic expectations that dominant oth¬ers would feel guilty about exploiting her and then be motivated by guilt to be concerned and tender.”6
It bears repeating that the survivor is free to examine aspects of her own personality or behavior that rendered her vulnerable to exploitation only after it has been clearly established that the perpetrator alone is responsible for the crime. A frank exploration of the traumatized person’s weaknesses and mistakes can be undertaken only in an environment that protects against shaming and harsh judgment. Otherwise, it becomes simply another exercise in blaming the victim. Robert J. Lifton, in his work with Vietnam veterans, makes a clear distinction between the de¬structive quality of the men’s initial self-blame and the constructive, affirming self-examination that subsequently evolved in their “rap group”:
I was struck by the emphasis the men . . . placed upon responsibility and volition. While freely critical of military and political leaders, and of institu¬tions promoting militarism and war, they invariably came back to the self-judgment that they had, themselves, entered willingly. ... They stressed that they had done so ... for the most foolish of reasons. But their implication was that they had chosen the military and the war, rather than the military and the war choosing them. Nor was that self-judgment totally attributable to residual guilt; rather, it was part of a struggle to deepen and stretch the reach of the self toward the far limits of autonomy.7
As survivors recognize their own socialized assumptions that rendered them vulnerable to exploitation in the past, they may also identify sources of continued social pressure that keep them confined in a victim role in the present. Just as they must overcome their own fears and inner con¬flicts, they must also overcome these external social pressures; otherwise, they will be continually subjected to symbolic repetitons of the trauma in everyday life. Whereas in the first stage of recovery survivors deal with social adversity mainly by retreating to a protected environment, in the third stage survivors may wish to take the initiative in confronting others. It is at this point that survivors are ready to reveal their secrets, to challenge the indifference or censure of bystanders, and to accuse those who have abused them.
Survivors who grew up in abusive families have often cooperated for years with a family rule of silence. In preserving the family secret, they carry the weight of a burden that does not belong to them. At this point in their recovery, survivors may choose to declare to their families that the rule of silence has been irrevocably broken. In so doing, they re¬nounce the burden of shame, guilt, and responsibility, and place this burden on the perpetrator, where it properly belongs.
Family confrontations or disclosures can be highly empowering when they are properly timed and well planned. They should not be undertaken until the survivor feels ready to speak the truth as she knows it, without need for confirmation and without fear of consequences. The power of the disclosure rests in the act of telling the truth; how the family responds is immaterial. While validation from the family can be gratifying when it occurs, a disclosure session may be successful even if the family responds with unyielding denial or fury. In this circumstance the survivor has the opportunity to observe the family’s behavior and to enlarge her under-standing of the pressures she faced as a child.
In practice, family disclosures or confrontations require careful prepa-ration and attention to detail. Because so many family interactions are habitual and taken for granted, the dynamics of dominance and submis¬sion are frequently relived even in apparently trivial encounters. The survivor should be encouraged to take charge of the planning of the session and to establish explicit ground rules. For some survivors, it is a completely novel experience to be the maker of rules rather than the one who automatically obeys them.
The survivor should also be clear about her strategy for disclosure, planning in advance what information she wishes to reveal and to whom she wishes to reveal it. While some survivors wish to confront their perpetrators, many more wish to disclose the secret to nonoffending family members. The survivor should be encouraged to consider first approaching those family members who might be sympathetic, before proceeding to confront those who might be implacably hostile. Just like self-defense training, direct involvement in family conflicts often requires a series of graded exercises, in which the survivor masters one level of fear before choosing to proceed to higher levels of exposure.
Finally, the survivor should anticipate and plan for the various possible outcomes of her disclosure. While she may be clear about the desired outcome, she must be prepared to accept whatever the outcome may be. A successful disclosure is almost always followed by both exhilaration and disappointment. On the one hand, the survivor feels surprised at her own courage and daring. She no longer feels intimidated by her family or compelled to participate in destructive family relationships. She is no longer confined by secrecy; she has nothing more to hide. On the other hand, she gains a clearer sense of her family’s limitations. An incest survivor describes her feelings after disclosing the secret to her family:
Initially I felt a sense of success, completion, incredible relief! Then, I began to feel very sad, deep grief. It was extremely painful and I had no words for what I was feeling. I found myself crying and crying and not knowing exactly why. This hardly ever happens to me. I am usually able to have some kind of verbal description to explain my feelings. This was just raw feeling. Loss, grief, mourning, as if they had died. I felt no hope, no expectations from them ... I knew there was nothing unspoken on my part. I didn’t feel “Oh, if only I had said this or that.” I had said everything I wanted to say in the way I wanted to say it. I felt very complete about it and was very grateful for the lengthy planning, rehearsals, strategizing, etc. . . .
Since then I have felt free. . . . I feel HOPE! I feel like I have a future! I feel grounded, not like I’m manicky or high. When I’m sad, I’m sad; when I’m angry, I’m angry. I feel realistic about the bad times and the difficulties I will face, but I know I have myself. It’s very different. And it’s nothing
I ever could imagine, not at all. I always wanted this freedom and was always fighting to get it. Now it’s no longer a battle—there’s no one to fight—it’s simply mine.8
RECONCILING WITH ONESELF
This simple statement—“I know I have myself’—could stand as the emblem of the third and final stage of recovery. The survivor no longer feels possessed by her traumatic past; she is in possession of herself. She has some understanding of the person she used to be and of the damage done to that person by the traumatic event. Her task now is to become the person she wants to be. In the process she draws upon those aspects of herself that she most values from the time before the trauma, from the experience of the trauma itself, and from the period of recovery. Integrat¬ing all of these elements, she creates a new self, both ideally and in actuality.
The re-creation of an ideal self involves the active exercise of imagina¬tion and fantasy, capacities that have now been liberated. In earlier stages, the survivor’s fantasy life was dominated by repetitions of the trauma, and her imagination was limited by a sense of helplessness and futility. Now she has the capacity to revisit old hopes and dreams. The survivor may initially resist doing so, fearing the pain of disappointment. It takes courage to move out of the constricted stance of the victim. But just as the survivor must dare to confront her fears, she must also dare to define her wishes. A guidebook for formerly battered women who face the task of rebuilding their lives explains how to recover lost aspirations:
Now is the time to rise above the sameness of your days and explore the risk of testing your abilities, the expansive feeling that comes from . . . growth. Perhaps you’ve been taught that while everyone of course wants all that, it’s just adolescent nonsense to expect it. Maybe you believe mature people settle down to a dull life and make do with what they have. It may, indeed, be impractical to recapture and act upon your girlhood dreams. This may not be the time to go (with or without the children) pff to Hollywood to become a star. But don’t count it, or anything, out until you’ve come up with some good reasons. ... If you really “always wanted to act,” don’t go to your grave saying that regretfully. Get out and join a little theater group.9
The work of therapy often focuses at this point on the development of desire and initiative. The therapeutic environment allows a protected space in which fantasy can be given free rein. It is also a testing ground for the translation of fantasy into concrete action. The self-discipline learned in the early stages of recovery can now be joined to the survivor’s capacities for imagination and play. This is a period of trial and error, of learning to tolerate mistakes and to savor unexpected success.
Gaining possession of oneself often requires repudiating those aspects of the self that were imposed by the trauma. As the survivor sheds her victim identity, she may also choose to renounce parts of herself that have felt almost intrinsic to her being. Once again, this process challenges the survivor’s capacities for both fantasy and discipline. An incest survivor describes how she embarked on a conscious program to change her ingrained sexual responses to scenarios of sadomasochism: “I came to the point where I really understood that they weren’t my fantasies. They’d been imposed on me through the abuse. And gradually, I began to be able to have orgasms without thinking about the SM, without picturing my father doing something to me. Once I separated the fantasy from the feeling, I’d consciously impose other powerful images on that feeling— like seeing a waterfall. If they can put SM on you, you can put waterfalls there instead. I reprogrammed myself.”10
While the survivor becomes more adventurous in the world during this period, her life at the same time becomes more ordinary. As she recon¬nects with herself, she feels calmer and better able to face her life with equanimity. At times, this peaceable day-to-day existence may feel strange, especially to survivors who have been raised in a traumatic environment and are experiencing normality for the first time. Whereas in the past survivors often imagined that ordinary life would be boring, now they are bored with the life of a victim and ready to find ordinary life interesting. A survivor of childhood sexual abuse testifies to this change: “I’m an intensity junkie. I feel a letdown whenever I come to the end of a particular cycle of intensity. What am I going to cry and throw scenes about now? . . . I see it as almost a chemical addiction. I became addicted to my own sense of drama and adrenaline. Letting go of the need for intensity has been a process of slowly weaning myself. I’ve gotten to a point where I’ve actually experienced bits of plain contentment.”11
As survivors recognize and “let go” of those aspects of themselves that were formed by the traumatic environment, they also become more forgiving of themselves. They are more willing to acknowledge the damage done to their character when they no longer feel that such damage must be permanent. The more actively survivors are able to engage in rebuilding their lives, the more generous and accepting they can be toward the memory of the traumatized self. Linda Lovelace reflects on the ordeal of being coerced into her career as a porno¬graphic movie star: “I’m not so hard on myself these days. Maybe it’s because I’m so busy taking care of a three-year-old son, a husband, a house, and two cats. I look back at Linda Lovelace and I understand her; I know why she did what she did. It was because she felt it was better to live than to die.”12
At this point also the survivor can sometimes identify positive aspects of the self that were forged in the traumatic experience, even while recognizing that any gain was achieved at far too great a price. From a position of increased power in her present life, the survivor comes to a deeper recognition of her powerlessness in the traumatic situation and thus to a greater appreciation of her own adaptive resources. For exam¬ple, a survivor who used dissociation to cope with terror and helplessness may begin to marvel at this extraordinary capacity of the mind. Though she developed this capacity as a prisoner and may have become impris¬oned by it as well, once she is free, she may even learn to use her trance capability to enrich her present life rather than to escape from it.
Compassion and respect for the traumatized, victim self join with a celebration of the survivor self. As this stage of recovery is achieved, the survivor often feels a sense of renewed pride. This healthy admiration of the self differs from the grandiose feeling of specialness sometimes found in victimized people. The victim’s specialness compensates for self-loath¬ing and feelings of worthlessness. Always brittle, it admits of no imperfec¬tion. Moreover, the victim’s specialness carries with it a feeling of differ¬ence and isolation from others. By contrast, the survivor remains fully aware of her ordinariness, her weaknesses, and her limitations, as well as her connection and indebtedness to others. This awareness provides a balance, even as she rejoices in her strengths. A woman who survived both childhood abuse and battering in adulthood expresses her apprecia¬tion to the staff at a women’s shelter: “Now I can thank myself too because you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make her drink. I was mighty damn thirsty and you showed me the way to the water . . . the wellspring of living water within as well as without. . . a resource I can draw on any time. And sisters, I drank and drank and I’m not through drinking yet. I feel so lucky. I’ve been given so much love and healing and I’m learning how to pass it on. . . . Hey take a look at me now. Ain’t I something!”13
RECONNECTING WITH OTHERS
By the third stage of recovery, the survivor has regained some capacity for appropriate trust. She can once again feel trust in others when that trust is warranted, she can withhold her trust when it is not warranted, and she knows how to distinguish between the two situations. She has also regained the ability to feel autonomous while remaining connected to others; she can maintain her own point of view and her own bounda¬ries while respecting those of others. She has begun to take more initiative in her life and is in the process of creating a new identity. With others, she is now ready to risk deepening her relationships. With peers, she can now seek mutual friendships that are not based on performance, image, or maintenance of a false self. With lovers and family, she is now ready for greater intimacy.
The deepening of connection is also apparent within the therapeutic relationship. The therapeutic alliance now feels less intense, but more relaxed and secure. There is room for more spontaneity and humor. Crises and disruptions are infrequent, with more continuity between sessions. The patient has a greater capacity for self-observation and a greater tolerance for inner conflict. With this changed appreciation of herself comes a changed appreciation of the therapist. The patient may idealize the therapist less but like her more; she is more forgiving of the therapist’s limitations as well as her own. The work comes to feel more like ordinary psychotherapy.
Because the survivor is focusing on issues of identity and intimacy, she often feels at this stage as though she is in a second adolescence. The survivor who has grown up in an abusive environment has in fact been denied a first adolescence and often lacks the social skills that normally develop during this stage of life. The awkwardness and self-consciousness that make normal adolescence tumultuous and painful are often magni¬fied in adult survivors, who may be exquisitely ashamed of their “back¬wardness” in skills that other adults take for granted. Adolescent styles of coping may also be prominent at this time. Just as adolescents giggle in order to ward off their embarrassment, adult survivors may find in laugh¬ter an antidote to their shame. Just as adolescents band together in tight friendships in order to risk exploring a wider world, survivors may find themselves developing intense new loyalties as they rebuild their lives. A mother of two children created such a bond in the renewal of an old friendship after she had escaped from her battering husband: “My girl¬friend from Utah moved here. Hot mama one and two! . . . We’re like teenagers sometimes. Somebody said we’re like primates picking out fleas, and we are. We give each other that kind of attention. She’s the only one I’d do without for.”14
As the trauma recedes into the past, it no longer represents a barrier to intimacy. At this point, the survivor may be ready to devote her energy more fully to a relationship with a partner. If she has not been involved in an intimate relationship, she may begin to consider the possibility without feeling either dread or desperate need. If she has been involved with a partner during the recovery process, she often becomes much more aware of the ways in which her partner suffered from her preoccu¬pation with the trauma. At this point she can express her gratitude more freely and make amends when necessary.
Sexual intimacy presents a particular barrier for survivors of sexual trauma. The physiological processes of arousal and orgasm may be com-promised by intrusive traumatic memories; sexual feelings and fantasies may be similarly invaded by reminders of the trauma. Reclaiming one’s own capacity for sexual pleasure is a complicated matter; working it out with a partner is more complicated still. Treatment techniques for post- traumatic sexual dysfunction are all predicated upon enhancing the survi¬vor’s control over every aspect of her sexual life. This is most readily accomplished at first in sexual activities without a partner.15 Including a partner requires a high degree of cooperation, commitment, and self¬discipline from both parties. A self-help manual for survivors of child¬hood sexual abuse suggests “safe-sex guidelines” for exploring sexual intimacy, instructing partners to define, for themselves and for each other, activities that predictably trigger traumatic memories and those that do not, and only gradually to enlarge their exploration to areas that are “possibly safe.”16
Finally, the deepening of intimacy brings the survivor into connection with the next generation. Concern for the next generation is always linked to the question of prevention. The survivor’s overriding fear is a repeti¬tion of the trauma; her goal is to prevent a repetition at all costs. “Never again!” is the survivor’s universal cry. In earlier stages of recovery the survivor often avoids the unbearable thought of repetition by shunning involvement with children. Or if the survivor is a parent, she may oscillate between withdrawal and overprotectiveness with her children, just as she oscillates between extremes in her other relationships.
In the third stage of recovery, as the survivor comes to terms with the meaning of the trauma in her own life, she may also become more open to new forms of engagement with children. If the survivor is a parent, she may come to recognize ways in which the trauma experience has in¬directly affected her children, and she may take steps to rectify the situation. If she does not have children, she may begin to take a new and broader interest in young people. She may even wish for the first time to bring children into the world.
Also for the first time the survivor may consider how best to share the trauma story with children, in a manner that is neither secretive nor imposing, and how to draw lessons from this story that will protect children from future dangers. The trauma story is part of the survivor’s legacy; only when it is fully integrated can the survivor pass it on, in confidence that it will prove a source of strength and inspiration rather than a blight on the next generation. Michael Norman captures the image of survivorship as a legacy in describing the baptism of his newborn son, with his Vietnam War combat buddy, Craig, serving as godfather: “Stand¬ing in a crowded room watching Craig cradle the baby in his arms, I suddenly realized that there was more to the moment than even I had intended, for what was truly taking place ... went well beyond the offering of a holy sacrament or the consecration of a private pact. In the middle of the ritual, I was overcome with a sense . . . of winning! . . . Here, at last, was victory worth having—my son in the arms of my comrade.”17
FINDING A SURVIVOR MISSION
Most survivors seek the resolution of their traumatic experience within the confines of their personal lives. But a significant minority, as a result of the trauma, feel called upon to engage in a wider world. These survi¬vors recognize a political or religious dimension in their misfortune and discover that they can transform the meaning of their personal tragedy by making it the basis for social action. While there is no way to compensate for an atrocity, there is a way to transcend it, by making it a gift to others. The trauma is redeemed only when it becomes the source of a survivor mission.
Social action offers the survivor a source of power that draws upon her own initiative, energy, and resourcefulness but that magnifies these quali¬ties far beyond her own capacities. It offers her an alliance with others based on cooperation and shared purpose. Participation in organized, demanding social efforts calls upon the survivor’s most mature and adap¬tive coping strategies of patience, anticipation, altruism, and humor. It brings out the best in her; in return, the survivor gains the sense of connection with the best in other people. In this sense of reciprocal connection, the survivor can transcend the boundaries of her particular time and place. At times the survivor may even attain a feeling of partici¬pation in an order of creation that transcends ordinary reality. Natan Sharansky, a prisoner of conscience, describes this spiritual dimension of his survivor mission:
Back in Lefortovo [prison], Socrates and Don Quixote, Ulysses and Gar- gantua, Oedipus and Hamlet, had rushed to my aid. I felt a spiritual bond with these figures; their struggles reverberated with my own, their laughter with mine. They accompanied me through prisons and camps, through cells and transports. At some point I began to feel a curious reverse connection: not only was it important to me how these characters behaved in various circumstances, but it was also important to them, who had been created many centuries ago, to know how I was acting today. And just as they had influenced the conduct of individuals in many lands and over many centuries, so I, too, with my decisions and choices had the power to inspire or disenchant those who had existed in the past as well as those who would come in the future. This mystical feeling of the interconnection of human souls was forged in the gloomy prison-camp world when our zeks’ solidarity was the one weapon we had to oppose the world of evil.18
Social action can take many forms, from concrete engagement with particular individuals to abstract intellectual pursuits. Survivors may focus their energies on helping others who have been similarly victimized, on educational, legal, or political efforts to prevent others from being victim¬ized in the future, or on attempts to bring offenders to justice. Common to all these efforts is a dedication to raising public awareness. Survivors understand full well that the natural human response to horrible events is to put them out of mind. They may have done this themselves in the past. Survivors also understand that those who forget the past are con¬demned to repeat it. It is for this reason that public truth-telling is the common denominator of all social action.
Survivors undertake to speak about the unspeakable in public in the belief that this will help others. In so doing, they feel connected to a power larger than themselves. A graduate of an incest survivors* group describes how she felt after members of her group presented an educa¬tional program on sexual abuse for child protective workers: “That we could come to this point and do this at all is a miracle of major propor¬tions. The power we all felt at reaching 40 people at once, each of whom will touch the lives of 40 children, was so exhilarating. It almost overcame the fear.”19 Sarah Buel, once a battered woman and now a district attorney in charge of domestic violence prosecutions, describes the central impor¬tance of her own story as a gift to others: “I want women to have some sense of hope, because I can just remember how terrifying it was not to have any hope—the days I felt there was no way out. I feel very much like that’s part of my mission, part of why God didn’t allow me to die in that marriage, so that I could talk openly and publicly—and it’s taken me so many years to be able to do it—about having been battered.”20
Although giving to others is the essence of the survivor mission, those who practice it recognize that they do so for their own healing. In taking care of others, survivors feel recognized, loved, and cared for themselves. Ken Smith, a Vietnam veteran who is now the director of a model shelter and rehabilitation program for homeless veterans, describes the sense of “interconnection of human souls” that sustains and inspires his work:
There are times when I am completely at odds with what I do here, because I am not by any shake of a stick any kind of a leader. Whenever the responsibility becomes heavy, I appeal to my brothers, and whatever the big heavy issue is at the moment, miraculously some form of solution is developed—most times not by me. If you follow it back, it’s someone who has been touched by Vietnam. I pretty much count on it now. That is the commonality of the experience, that thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of people were touched by this. Whether you’re a Vietnam vet or an antiwar protester, it doesn’t matter. This is about being an American, this is about what you learn in a fourth-grade civics class, this is about taking care of our own, this is about my brother. This feels very personal to me. That feeling of isolation, it’s gone. I’m so connected into it, it’s therapeutic to me.21
The survivor mission may also take the form of pursuing justice. In the third stage of recovery, the survivor comes to understand the issues of principle that transcend her personal grievance against the perpetrator. She recognizes that the trauma cannot be undone and that her wishes for compensation or revenge can never be truly fulfilled. She also recognizes, however, that holding the perpetrator accountable for his crimes is im¬portant not only for her personal well-being but also for the health of the larger society. She rediscovers an abstract principle of social justice that connects the fate of others to her own. When a crime has been commit¬ted, in the words of Hannah Arendt, “The wrongdoer is brought to justice because his act has disturbed and gravely endangered the commu¬nity as a whole.... It is the body politic itself that stands in need of being repaired, and it is the general public order that has been thrown out of gear and must be restored. . . . It is, in other words, the law, not the plaintiff, that must prevail.”22
Recognizing the impersonality of law, the survivor is to some degree relieved of the personal burden of battle. It is the law, not she, that must prevail. By making a public complaint or accusation, the survivor defies the perpetrator’s attempt to silence and isolate her, and she opens the possibility of finding new allies. When others bear witness to the testi¬mony of a crime, others share the responsibility for restoring justice. Furthermore, the survivor may come to understand her own legal battle as a contribution to a larger struggle, in which her actions may benefit others as well as herself. Sharon Simone, who with her three sisters filed suit for damages against her father for the crime of incest, describes the sense of connection with another child victim that spurred her to take action:
I read about a case in the newspaper. A man had admitted he raped a little girl twice. The child was brought to the sentencing hearing because the therapist thought it would be good for her to see the man led away; she would see that crimes do get punished. Instead, the judge allowed a parade of character witnesses. He said there really are two victims in this court¬room. I thought I was going to go berserk with the injustice. ... That was such a turning point. The rage and the sense of holding someone account¬able. I saw that it was a necessary thing. It wasn’t that I needed a confes¬sion. I needed to do the action of holding someone accountable. I wanted to break the denial and the pretense. So I said, I will join that lawsuit. I’ll do it for that little girl. I’ll do it for my brothers and sisters. And I think a little voice said, “You should also do it for you.”23
The sense of participation in meaningful social action enables the survivor to engage in legal battle with the perpetrator from a position of strength. As in the case of private, family confrontations, the survivor draws power from her ability to stand up in public and speak the truth without fear of the consequences. She knows that truth is what the perpetrator most fears. The survivor also gains satisfaction from the public exercise of power in the service of herself and others. Buel de¬scribes her feeling of triumph in advocating for battered women: “I love court. There’s some adrenaline rush about court. It feels so wonderful to have learned enough about the law and to care enough about this woman so I know the facts cold. It feels wonderful to walk into court and the judge has to listen to me. That’s exacdy what I’ve wanted to do for fourteen years: to force the system to treat women respectfully. To make this system that victimized . . . so many women work for us, not being mean or corrupt about it, but playing by their rules and making it work: there’s a sense of power.”24
The survivor who undertakes public action also needs to come to terms with the fact that not every battle will be won. Her particular battle becomes part of a larger, ongoing struggle to impose the rule of law on the arbitrary tyranny of the strong. This sense of participation is some¬times all that she has to sustain her. The sense of alliance with others who support her and believe in her cause can console her even in defeat. A rape survivor reports on the benefit of standing up in court: “I was raped by a neighbor, who got into my house on the pretext of helping me out. I went to the police and pressed charges, and I went to court twice. I had a rape crisis counselor, and the district attorneys were really nice and helpful, and they all believed me. The first time there was a hung jury, and the second time he was acquitted. I was disappointed in the verdict, but I can’t control that. It didn’t ruin my life. Going through the court was a kind of catharsis. I did everything I could to protect myself and stand up for myself, so it didn’t fester.”25
The survivor who elects to engage in public battle cannot afford to delude herself about the inevitability of victory. She must be secure in the knowledge that simply in her willingness to confront the perpetrator she has overcome one of the most terrible consequences of the trauma. She has let him know he cannot rule her by fear, and she has exposed his crime to others. Her recovery is based not on the illusion that evil has been overcome, but rather on the knowledge that it has not entirely prevailed and on the hope that restorative love may still be found in the world.
RESOLVING THE TRAUMA
Resolution of the trauma is never final; recovery is never complete. The impact of a traumatic event continues to reverberate throughout the survivor’s lifecycle. Issues that were sufficiently resolved at one stage of recovery may be reawakened as the survivor reaches new milestones in her development. Marriage or divorce, a birth or death in the family, illness or retirement, are frequent occasions for a resurgence of traumatic memories. For example, as the fighters and refugees of the Second World War encounter the losses of old age, they experience a revival of post- traumatic symptoms.26 A survivor of childhood abuse who has resolved her trauma sufficiently to work and love may suffer a return of symptoms when she marries, or when she has her first child, or when her child reaches the same age that she was when the abuse began. A survivor of severe childhood abuse, who returned to treatment several years after completing a successful course of psychotherapy, describes how her symptoms came back when her toddler son began to defy her, “Every¬thing was going so well until the baby reached the ‘terrible twos.’ He had been such an easy baby; now all of a sudden he was giving me a hard time. I couldn’t cope with his tantrums. I felt like beating him until he shut up. I had a vivid image of smothering him with a pillow till he stopped moving. I know now what my mother did to me. And I know what I could have done to my child if I hadn’t gotten help.”27
This patient was humiliated by her need to return to psychotherapy. She feared that the return of symptoms meant her earlier therapy had been a failure and proved she was “incurable.” To avert such needless disappointment and humiliation, patients should be advised as they com¬plete a course of treatment that post-traumatic symptoms are likely to recur under stress. As therapy nears its end, it is useful for patient and therapist together to review the basic principles of empowerment and affiliation that fostered recovery. These same principles can be applied to preventing relapses or to coping with whatever relapses may occur. The patient should not be led to expect that any treatment is absolute or final. When a course of treatment comes to its natural conclusion, the door should be left open for the possibility of a return at some point in the future.
Though resolution is never complete, it is often sufficient for the survivor to turn her attention from the tasks of recovery to the tasks of ordinary life. The best indices of resolution are the survivor’s restored capacity to take pleasure in her life and to engage fully in relationships with others. She has become more interested in the present and the future than in the past, more apt to approach the world with praise and awe than with fear. Richard Rhodes, a survivor of severe childhood abuse, de¬scribes the feeling of resolution achieved after many decades: “It was time at last to write this book—to tell my orphan’s story, as all orphans do; to introduce you to my child. There was a child went forth. He’d hidden in the basement all those years. The war’s over and my child has come up from the basement to blink in the sunlight. To play. I’m amazed and grateful that he never forgot how to play.”28
The psychologist Mary Harvey defines seven criteria for the resolution of trauma. First, the physiological symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder have been brought within manageable limits. Second, the person is able to bear the feelings associated with traumatic memories. Third, the person has authority over her memories: she can elect both to remember the trauma and to put memory aside. Fourth, the memory of the trau¬matic event is a coherent narrative, linked with feeling. Fifth, the person’s damaged self-esteem has been restored. Sixth, the person’s important relationships have been reestablished. Seventh and finally, the person has reconstructed a coherent system of meaning and belief that encompasses the story of the trauma.29 In practice, all of these issues are intercon¬nected, and all are addressed at every stage of recovery. The course of recovery does not follow a simple progression but often detours and doubles back, reviewing issues that have already been addressed many times in order to deepen and expand the survivor’s integration of the meaning of her experience.
The survivor who has accomplished her recovery faces life with few illusions but often with gratitude. Her view of life may be tragic, but for that very reason she has learned to cherish laughter. She has a clear sense of what is important and what is not. Having encountered evil, she knows how to cling to what is good. Having encountered the fear of death, she knows how to celebrate life. Sylvia Fraser, after many years spent unearth¬ing childhood memories of incest, reflects on her recovery:
In retrospect, I feel about my life the way some people feel about war. If you survive, then it becomes a good war. Danger makes you active, it makes you alert, it forces you to experience and thus to learn. I know now the cost of my life, the real price that has been paid. Contact with inner pain has immunized me against most petty hurts. Hopes I still have in abundance, but very few needs. My pride of intellect has been shattered. If I didn’t know about half my own life, what other knowledge can I trust? Yet even here I see a gift, for in place of my narrow, pragmatic world of cause and effect. . . . I have burst into an infinite world full of wonder.30 
Continue  to provide Paragraphs for close-read and analysis of   “Chapter 10 Reconnection”  per outline. 

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Herman’s Chapter 10 text are provided above :