Welcome to the Saturday edition of The Conversation U.S.’s Daily newsletter.
The story of “The Odyssey” endures because of timeless themes, such as the longing for home, resilience in the face of adversity, and fate versus free will.
But psychologists have long been drawn to the
work because it contains some of the earliest written descriptions of what’s now understood as post-traumatic stress disorder. For PTSD researcher Amy S. Badura-Brack, Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation also offers a striking portrayal of a form of emotional suffering that can accompany PTSD: moral injury.
People experience moral injury when they do something that violates their deeply held values, and it’s common among war veterans. After participating in bloody massacres and orchestrating the Trojan horse ruse, Odysseus “appears most distraught by the thought that a part of himself has died and is irrevocably broken,” she writes.
Toward the end of the film, he asks his wife, Penelope, “What if the Odysseus you knew lost his way?” In that line, Badura-Brack
heard a version of what countless veterans she treated had told her over the years: “If you really knew me, you wouldn’t love me.”
This week we also liked stories on how wildfires can affect the weather, the substantial harms of
vehicle idling, and tips for integrating time outdoors in your daily life.
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