Editorial Copy : Terminology
Running head There are many reasons for choosing a tattoo after trauma
Headline Tattoos after trauma
Byline and credits By Suzanne B. Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP
Body text (separated on middle page)
Whether you have many tattoos or would never
consider getting one, you may be surprised
to learn that according to a 2019 IPSO poll,
3 in 10 (30%) of Americans have at least one tattoo
and 40% under the age of 35 have at least one
tattoo. That is an increase from 21% in 2012.
While the reasons for tattoos are as varied as the
people who choose to get them, certain trends
have been identified. One persistent theme is the
choice of a tattoo to register some aspect of dealing
with a traumatic event. Across nations, generations,
and wars, those in the military have used tattoos
as symbols of allegiance, horrors faced, bravery,
survival, and tributes to fallen comrades.
Recently confronted with the devastation
of suffering and death from COVID-19, a
team of ICU nurses chose to recognize
their bond and their work by each getting a tattoo
that symbolized the front line, the team, and the
patients who died.
Subheads
Do These Tattoos Have
Healing Potential?
Remembering & Mourning
Healing From the Body Out The Skin as Canvas
Narrating Healing in Words and Images
Fostering Connection
Undoing the Shame of Hidden Trauma
Re-Defining Self
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A close consideration suggests that
tattoos—the
reason, the choice of tattoo, and the
experience
of getting a tattoo—offer six of the
qualities
associated with recovery after trauma.
Not all loss is traumatic but all trauma
involves
loss. It may be the loss of loved ones,
of life as it was known, of a sense of
agency, safety, predictability, of hope.
Recovery from trauma involves both
remembering and finding a place to
deal with traumatic loss. Many find a
place for unspeakable trauma and
loss in tattoos.
In the aftermath of 9/11, civilians and
firefighters throughout the world choose
tattoos as an indelible reminder of the
terrorist assault, the courage of first
responders, and the loss of so many.
In recognition of the violent death of
George
Floyd, a tattoo artist offered discounted
tattoos
of the words, “I can’t breathe” “Black Lives
Matter,” etc. The requests came flooding
in as
so many resonated with the horror and
need to
bear witness.
When a young father suffered the death of
his
newborn son, his brothers joined him in
tattooing
the name of their nephew on their arms.
Together
they would remember and carry him.
Whether a traumatic event involves a
terrorist
attack, sexual abuse, or facing death
every day
during a pandemic, it is registered in our
body in
terms of the survival reflexes of fight,
flight,
and freeze.
Encoded under these conditions, our
memory of
the traumatic event is not registered as
narrative,
but as fragments of highly charged visual
images,
bodily feelings, tactile sensations, or
sensory
reactivity to reminders of the event.
As such, trauma experts, like Bessel Van
Der Kolk
(2015), remind us that in the aftermath of
trauma,
The Body Keeps Score and we need to
work
“from the body out” in the course of
recovery
and healing.
" … you can’t fully recover if you don’t feel
safe in
your own skin.” (Van Der Kolk, 2014)
Tattooing starts at the body’s first line of
defense,
the skin, and uses it as a canvas to
physically bear
witness to the assault experienced on
body, mind,
and sense of self.
As such, it often visually and viscerally
becomes a
source of healing. A 24-year-old victim of
sexual
assault describes her body art as “… a
visual
reminder I am still alive. And still OK.” She
adds,
"If I am having a hard time, as soon as I
touch my
wrist and I run my finger over my word
‘survivor,’
it helps.”
In her book Under the Skin; A
Psychoanalytic
Study of Body Modification, Allessandra
Lemma (2010) reminds us that with
tattooing,
the significance for many is not just in the
final
creation but in the process of inking itself.
For
some, the process of the physical
transformation,
albeit painful, is like the birth of a new self
depicted in images or words. The tattoo is
a visual
demarcation of the new self from the old.
After a near-death experience, a young
man
chose to tattoo his inner arm with the word
“Unstoppable” and “00:42:00”—the time
he
was flat-lined. Many women who have had
a
mastectomy as treatment for breast
cancer are
using tattoos to reclaim their physical and
sexual
sense of self.
Many speak of the tattooing experience as
an
opportunity to share, create, and
symbolize
aspects of their traumatic experience with
the
tattoo artist. The setting, the connection,
the
interest of the tattoo artist, and even the
pain
open a space for self-awareness,
self-reflection,
even transcendence.
Van der Kolk (2010) describes such self
awareness
(often accessed through mindfulness,
meditation, therapeutic massage, tai chi,
etc.)
as necessary to bridge the emotionally
driven
survival state of trauma and the cognitive
ability to
register what happened without reactivity.
From Judith Herman’s (1997) perspective,
the essential dilemma of healing from
trauma
is the survivor’s conflict between hiding
the
unspeakable and proclaiming it. One
might
consider that tattooing addresses that
dilemma.
To look at the variations, colors,
intricacies, and
images of tattoos is to recognize them as
creative
outlets of a healing narrative.
In its visibility and in the bearer’s wish to
let it
be seen, a tattoo can undo the shame so
often
associated with trauma, war, and
victimization.
A Brazilian tattoo artist, Flavia Carvalho
has
a project, “A Pele da Flor” (The Skin Of
The Flower), in which she literally replaces
women's lifetime scars of domestic abuse
with tattoos that are beautiful,
empowering,
and transformative. As she
describes...“They
come to the studio, share their stories of
pain and resilience, and they show me
their scars. Embarrassed, they cry, and
hug me … It is wonderful to see how their
relationship with their bodies changes
after
they get the tattoos.”
Traumatic events stop time and
leave us untethered from humanity.
Illustration / Photo caption(s)
PHOTO BY QUAZAR ART
PHOTO BY ISADORA TRICERRI
PHOTO BY NINA HILL
Drop Cap
Folio
Pull quote
“… a visual
reminder I am
still alive.
And still OK.”
Jump line
An important aspect of the healing
potential of a tattoo—whether
it memorializes a loved one, bears
witness to survival, or shouts out a
mission of change—is that it invites
connection: to self, to others, and
to the future.
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