This remarkable collection of original essays, written by prominent scholars recognized for their achievements in a wide range of disciplines, defines trauma as a disruption in the fragile process of symbolization, or the human capacity to imbue life with meaning by representing the self's immortality. The contributors analyze the multiple meanings and deeper significance of trauma, whether of shell-shocked war veterans or victims of sexual abuse, and they discuss its manifestations, both subtle and obvious, in human behavior and memory. Organized as an honorary volume to Robert Jay Lifton, who identified trauma as the core psychological issue of the postmodern world, this book demonstrates how trauma and other fundamental breaks in human continuity inform psychiatric, historical, religious, literary, political, cultural, and scientific interpretations of the self.

Contributions by: Norman Birnbaum, Peter Brooks, Cathy Caruth, Mary Ann Caws, Takeo Doi, Joshua Dorban, John S. Dunne, Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Lillian Feder, Lawrence J. Friedman, Todd Gitlin, David G. Goodman, Judith Lewis Herman, Gerald Holton, Frances Degen Horowitz, Betty Jean Lifton, Phyllis Palgi, David Riesman, Richard Sennett, Margaret Thaler Singer, Charles B. Strozier, Lionel Tiger, Paul L. Wachtel, Noel Walsh