Why We’re All Writing About Trauma

In an era of public revelation, reflections on the ubiquitous trauma arc

Photo Credit: Hartwig HKD

“In a world infatuated with victimhood, has trauma emerged as a passport to status — a red badge of courage?” asks Parul Sehgal in a recent New Yorker essay. Sehgal provides a brief history of trauma diagnoses from what was once called “railway spine,” to shell-shock, to P.T.S.D. (The last, Sehgal notes, is today the fourth…