The Influence of Fantasy Tropes on The Perception of Recovery From Emotional Trauma As "Healing"

[Kaodi]

That was probably an unnecessarily long title, but I seem to have a problem with making thread titles that accurately portray what I am talking about.

This is a serious question, and it delves into an issue of political importance, but I do not believe the question or discussion is necessarily political itself in the way we are not supposed to talk about here on EN World.

In many articles about the history of the Indian Residential Schools in Canada, there is a big focus on us taking action that will allow the "healing" of the traumas inflicted in them to take place. Of course it is true that we must take action so that victims and their descendants can recover from the wounds inflicted therein, which at this point are mostly emotional ones. But there is something about how the word "healing" is used that just rubs me the wrong way these days, as if it has become a stereotype or a melodramatic or soft way of describing recovery; almost mystical in its effects.

What I am wondering is whether this is just me, or whether the fantasy trope of healing as a literally hand-wavy method of making injury going away has influenced me towards not being able to appreciate the sincerity of the words meaning in real life. I am not even sure that the word "heal" as a verb is affected by this same perception: it may have to do with just "healing" used as a noun.

Maybe I should not expect anyone to have anything else to say on this. After all, maybe it is just a personal quirk. And this post is obviously kind of rambling. But if anyone else thinks they can relate or sympathize with the phenomenon I am referring to I would be interested to hear about it.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Maybe I should not expect anyone to have anything else to say on this.

I happen to work in medical research (before hopefully attending medical school), and have spent significant time working on traumatic stress, particularly in a military context, as well as having a college background in psychology with a focus on forensics and relationship violence. I also have my own personal experience with the lasting effects of psychological and physical traumas. So yes, I've got some opinions on the subject.

***

The glibness with which the word "healing" is used is not limited to an rpg context by any means. Modern medicine is often expected to fix health problems as if they were mechanical malfunctions. Sometimes this expectation is realistic, but usually it is not; especially as it pertains to chronic, multifactorial illness. While we conceptualize wounds, infections, neoplasms, and psychiatric diagnoses as an illness that exists distinct from the person affected, this is not truly the case; the person's own mind or body are in fact part of the problem. This isn't a value judgment, simply an observation of fact.

For example, truly "healing" the wound caused by a broken leg involves not only repairing the damage to the bone and surrounding tissue, but also managing the pain, preventing infection, relearning how to walk, and perhaps making behavioral changes (to reduce the risk of reinjury). It may also involve overcoming fear of reinjury, relieving the financial consequences of the incident, dealing with the social role change associated with being injured, and addressing a variety of other psychosocial factors. If someone broke the person's leg, that raises another set of things that need to be healed. And this is just one leg.

In many cases, complete restoration is difficult or impossible, and "healing" may refer to making the person feel whole, even if some ailment remains. In many other cases, nonphysical wounds exceed or persist even in the absence of physical ones.

In a game/story context, we have conflicting pressures, wanting the game to be playable and the story to be engaging, but also wanting to connect to it. My perspective on these issues is always to start with reality and then simplify or change as necessary to fit the needs of the game. Clearly, that isn't the perspective of many game designers.

And, as well as the games themselves, I see players who seem somewhat inured to the effects of violence, and don't take it seriously enough. So I do agree with the premise here; I think the ease with which word "healing" is used cheapens the thing being healed, and wastes both the tactical gameplay implications and the human drama that true wounds and true healing would demand.

 

[sabrinathecat]

I think "Healing" has been abused by the touchy-feely crowd. I also think the "Let it all hang out" went a little too far, and people need to suck it back in a bit. Some problems should just be kept to yourself. (Things I hear some co-workers discuss are... yeeesh. Now I can never not know that unless I get a major concussion or alzheimers.)
On the other hand, yes, the medical profession does have to include psychological effects of injury as part of treatment. (Maybe my own little soap-opera would have gone better if my wife had been willing to participate in that. Sorry, no details--you don't need them, and I don't need to get it off my chest.)

As far as gaming goes, I sometimes put in NPCs who have suffered gruesome injuries (former Satyr adventurer who lost a leg, fighter who wasn't cured of wasting disease in time) to offset the fact that the PCs are so extremely lucky that their own healers are so efficient and can afford proper care with immediate effect.

 

[Umbran]

What I am wondering is whether this is just me, or whether the fantasy trope of healing as a literally hand-wavy method of making injury going away has influenced me towards not being able to appreciate the sincerity of the words meaning in real life. I am not even sure that the word "heal" as a verb is affected by this same perception: it may have to do with just "healing" used as a noun.

I don't know of anyone for whom the fantasy trope use of the word has changed how they look at the thing. Most folks (yourself included, I expect) can easily separate between the fantasy use and reality.

But, I think there's something in there that you may not realize. I'll approach it this way: Words, in and of themselves, do not have sincerity. *Speakers* have sincerity. Now, the question - how sincere can you be in speaking about it, when you don't know what you're talking about? Most folks who have not been treated for psychological or emotional trauma or stress really don't understand what "healing" means in this context. It seems to me that that's where the hand-waving comes from - ignorance, not fantasy tropes.

 

[Bagpuss]

But if anyone else thinks they can relate or sympathize with the phenomenon I am referring to I would be interested to hear about it.

Would that help with your healing over this issue you have?

 

[Kaodi]

Would that help with your healing over this issue you have?

?. I would not call what I was looking for "healing" . Perhaps "sympathize" was not the right word to use; I was using it more in the neutral sense that does not involve as much commiseration.

 

[Umbran]

I think Bagpuss was trying to be funny, aping a common mode of use of the term, in which the less-than-sincere connotation might be evident.

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Most words which originally possessed emotional meaning and sincerity get utterly wrung out of value by over use, misuse and over-misuse. "Healing" is one just word.

 

[jonesy]

But there is something about how the word "healing" is used that just rubs me the wrong way these days, as if it has become a stereotype or a melodramatic or soft way of describing recovery; almost mystical in its effects.

Etymologically it is mystical. It means 'to make whole'. That right there is an unrealistic expectation. Damage we incur, whether physical or mental, stays with us, even after the apparent wounds have healed. The whole idea of making something into what it was before the damage happened is unrealistic. Change is the only constant in this universe.

(I'm looking at a Finnish language etymology dictionary right now and it says that the equivalent word 'parantaa' means 'to make good', in the good vs evil sense. Interesting, I think.)

 

[Deset Gled]

But there is something about how the word "healing" is used that just rubs me the wrong way these days, as if it has become a stereotype or a melodramatic or soft way of describing recovery; almost mystical in its effects.

What I am wondering is whether this is just me, or whether the fantasy trope of healing as a literally hand-wavy method of making injury going away has influenced me towards not being able to appreciate the sincerity of the words meaning in real life.

Fantasy tropes have little to do with it. Here's basically the same rant in relation to US history (warning: some colorful language is possible):

[video=youtube;hSp8IyaKCs0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSp8IyaKCs0[/video]

The discussion is also not new. You're bringing it up in 2013. The rant above is from 1990. But parallel arguments are made in the film Haxan from 1922 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Häxan) Interestingly, that film presents the concept of Female Hysteria as a "modern" concept. And frankly, "hysteria" was a progressive word at the time, and much better than the terms that preceded it (i.e. witchcraft and demonic possession).

The bottom line is that our understanding of mental issues is changing constantly over time. Hopefully, it's generally changing for the better. And as our understanding changes, we constantly find new words to describe it. Even if the new words aren't better, they're chosen to be different. You always need new words to differentiate the new theory from the old.

Also, at every point along the way people will focus on single words. People want a simple way to describe something. They want to quickly summarize and classify it. They need a catchphrase to remember it, a keyword to goggle it, and a hot word to rant against. And as long as the processes aren't distilled as many issues are cast under the umbrella of a single term, it's not a problem. The important thing is the actual treatment.

So don't focus on the word "healing". Focus on the methods that are being used. As long as those treatments are better than what was being used a generation before, we're making progress.