Traumata by Meera Atkinson

Author:Meera Atkinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Published: 2018-03-27T04:00:00+00:00

My sociologist friend, Dr Elaine Swan, who has researched therapy culture extensively, says Robbins ‘performs a classic charismatic self-help guru body and presence. He reproduces politically problematic psychological ideas. For me, he is the epitome of the US self-help psychologicalisation of the social. Of course, people do get a few tips from self-help. And some claim it helpful. Most respond to it as what Paul Lichterman calls “thin culture”, drawing on it along with other resources to try to get through whatever they need to. When people pay so much for a seminar, they tend to claim some road-to-Damascus experience.’ Another friend, Professor Zachary Steel, chair of trauma and mental health at the University of New South Wales, says that while he appreciates many of Robbins’ sentiments, he doesn’t believe PTSD can be treated as readily as his teachings imply.

Despite my concerns and scepticism, I came away from the documentary curiously moved. No doubt, this is its intention and maybe it marks me a sucker. There’s something touching about the vulnerability of all those people searching, reaching, even Robbins himself. Something about the struggle of the human spirit and all that collective pain is compelling regardless of the questionability of the show-biz context and hyperbolic claims. At the end of the seminar, Robbins instructs the audience to reflect on three moments in their lives for which they are profoundly grateful and to feel the blessing of those moments. ‘Make your life a masterpiece,’ he says, by way of a goodbye. What, I’m left wondering, would he say to those who torture a kangaroo and post trophy footage of the unspeakable and avoidable suffering they inflict? How would he help the boys and men trading ‘wins’ in the pornography ring to make a ‘masterpiece’ of their lives?

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