ABSTRACT
In line with the arguments put forward in Chapters 1 and 6 in this collection, I argue here for a broadening out of the denition of trauma from one informed by the dominant model’s largely psychological and individualistic focus to a more holistic one informed also by sociological and existentialist insights. I do so in order to prevent the traumatic effects of ageism from being missed by those in a position to offer support to those affected. Kammerer and Mazelis (2006), within a conceptual framework of interpersonal violence, have argued for a broadening out of the denition of trauma such that it recognizes the potential for trauma to arise from continuing, prolonged and repeated experiences, rather than as, necessarily, a single devastating event. Building on their work, and with reference to older people and assumptions about them, I take as my starting point the premise that:
1. trauma can be understood as an “assault on the self” (Harvey, 2002). That is, it provides a challenge to older people’s sense of self, and worth, that can be experienced as profoundly spiritually unsettling, or even devastating, where it calls into question their assumptions about who they consider themselves to be or want to become, and what they consider their place in the world to be – in essence, their spiritual grounding; and
2. a narrow denition of trauma as a one-off event can underestimate the potentially traumatizing outcome of being on the receiving end of a “dripfeed” of such “assaults on the self.”
