Structure

The book is broken down into five parts, each with several chapters. with each chapter is broken down into several sub-chapters, or sections, each with its own title and point of focus. Each part is focused on a particular experience of trauma, moving from the author’s excavation of how considerations of the nature and trauma have re-emerged into the public consciousness (Part One) through to the lengthiest section of the book – Part Five, in which the author considers a range of contemporary theories and practices relating to the treatment of trauma.

The chapters within each part focus on a separate facet of that part’s primary focus. The three chapters in Part One, for example, consider how the circumstances and behavior of military veterans returning from the Vietnam War supplied information and impetus leading to the development of the diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); how...