Trauma, body movement and mental health: An appreciation of samuel beckett's waiting for godot

Abstract

This article is intended to create an interdisciplinary space to enable productive dialogue about bodily representation of psychological trauma and its meanings in artistic, literary, visual, and health discourses, with reference to Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Drawing on Pat Ogden and her colleagues' somatic approach to trauma therapy and on Bessel A. van der Kolk's hypothesis that traumatic experiences of the past manifest in physiological states and actions of the present, the article views postures and body movements of the characters in the play as symptoms of psychological trauma. It shows how the play offers unique insights into the trauma pathology of postwar Europe, which may be valuable to psychiatrists, psychotherapists, rehabilitation workers, victim advocates, and students and interns entering the fields of mental health and trauma treatment.