Violet Light and a Hum: Existential Dimensions of Trauma in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Psychotherapeutic Discourse
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper positions literary fiction as a complementary site through which the existential dimensions of trauma may be brought into view. Engagement with such representations may enrich psychotherapeutic discourse, particularly where the complex reverberations of trauma remain elusive or conceptually peripheral. The study advances an interdisciplinary approach by employing hermeneutic phenomenology to engage directly with Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five . Through a close reading of the protagonist’s descent into suspended modes of being that resist integration, the analysis demonstrates that existential disclosure does not necessarily culminate in meaning-making. Rather, traumatic affect, as rendered in this narrative form, emerges as paradoxical, temporally dislocated and resistant to therapeutic teleology. By bringing trauma-fiction into textual conversation with existential psychotherapy literature, the paper seeks to deepen theoretical understandings of existential upheaval as it may manifest in the wake of trauma. Therefore, it contributes to contemporary discourse on trauma as capable of catalysing ontological reconfiguration.
Source: Journal of Humanistic Psychology
Authors: Kelly Rae Olander, Annemarie Klingenberg
Institutions: Adelaide University, The University of Adelaide
Language: English
Subfield: Cultural Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,650
OpenAlex ID: W7225663721