Adverse Childhood Experiences

According to a joint discovery by the CDC and Kaiser Permenente in the mid 1990’s, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are one of the greatest threats to public health we face today.

Exposure to childhood traumas dramatically increases the risk for 7 out of 10 of the leading causes of death in the United States. This is because the brain and body experience traumatic events in way that prevents the formation of coherent memories. This prevents the victim’s ability to recount, reflect and make meaning of their experience. Traumatic events often leave victims isolated in confusion because they cannot recount the event without reliving it, which is a symptom of PTSD. Victims of trauma require non-conventional interventions for healing.

Art in general, but theater, the dramatic enactment of traumatic stories in particular, is a powerful medium for victims of trauma in their pursuit of peace, understanding and wholeness. 

Rev. Yung Me Suh Morris is an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). She employs Trauma Theory as an interpretive lens to read the Biblical Narratives. She understands it as a book written by a people who have endured unspeakable trauma to provide a record of thanksgiving for their survival and a poetic dream for a future that does not yet exist.