2/ "A True Child of Trauma" - Sarah Haley: 1939-1989 by Chaim F. Shatan

Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1990
"A True Child of Trauma" - Sarah Haley: 1939-1989

Chaim F. Shatan

At the Tufts University memorial for Sarah Haley (October 7, 1989), 
ail types of people whose lives she had touched were present: her brothers, 
sisters-in-Iaw, niece, and nephew; friends; V.A. clinicians; her psychiatrist; 
comrades from the Vietnam veterans movement; colleagues from the Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Most poignant was the presence of veterans 
from three wars which spanned her lifetime.

A black Vietnam veteran spoke about the difference she had made in 
his life by never giving up on him - even though, for her, there was no financial gain. A veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars told us how she had 
saved his life when the memory of his atrocities made him suicidal. He said 
that she gave up on no one, and that her dedication was much deeper than 
just doing a job. He added that he would go anywhere and promote any 
cause that furthered the work set in motion by Sarah Haley. A veteran, badly scarred by burns suffered in World War II, moved us by his quiet yet in- 
tense account of her profound grasp of his suffering. "We are her living 
memorial," he concluded. Her brother Tom spoke about those aspects of 
her life that were most personal, rendering meaningful her passage from the 
beginning of her life to the Sarah Haley we knew, respected, and loved. After hearing Tom talk, Erwin Parson said: "Sarah was a true child of trauma."

Fifteen years earlier, Nick Egleson reporter for the Village Voice of 
New York) called me and asked if l'd ever heard of Sarah Haley'. 1 said that 
1 hadn't. He said: "You ought to read her paper 'When the Patient Reports 
Atrocities.' She's been working with Vietnam veterans since 1969 and 1 just 
spent an hour and a half on the phone with her."

I got her paper from the New York Academy of Medicine. It let loose 
in me an instinctive flood of startled recognition. 1 contacted her at once 
because 1 felt grateful and nourished by its rich draught of life. Her work 
seemed absolutely natural and inevitable. Here was someone else, sort of 
like you, saying things about pain and sorrow; about death, fear, and darkness; about helpfulness and hope, that meant something. I invited her to take part in a round table on "War Babies" at the 1975 meeting of the American 
'Orthopsychiatric Association in Washington. She had already noticed the 
impact of homecoming Vietnam veterans on their wives and children. At the 
round table, she presented a paper entitled "Guerrilla Warfare and the Magic Years." Little did I know, then, from what deep wellsprings of personal 
experience as a war baby she spoke. It was no wonder that her projected 
book of Vietnam veteran cases was dedicated to her father, Joseph Dennis Haley. As a World War II veteran, he had not only caused her pain, but 
taught her a great deal about the relationship between the Veterans Administration and war veterans.
Pour lire la suite de l'article, consulter le Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1990

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Autres billets dédiés à Sarah Haley
1/ Hommage à Sarah Haley an incest victim involved in the acceptance of PTSD