by Roger Keizerstein, LCSW
Kenneth Lonergan, writer and director of the emotionally gripping film Manchester By The Sea (Amazon Studios, 2016, available on Amazon Prime May 2017), may not have been informed by the science of trauma, but his characters clearly illustrate the complicated relationship between trauma and loss, as well as the ways in which individuals grapple with symptoms of posttraumatic stress and grief.
The movie’s main characters, Lee, 40, and his nephew Patrick, 16, are brought together by the death of Patrick’s father Joe, Lee’s older brother. Patrick’s mother has long been out of the picture because of her alcoholism. Lee, to his utter surprise, has been bequeathed guardianship of Patrick. Both Lee and Patrick have a history of loss, but because of the unique nature of those losses, they have responded to them in much different ways.
In the movie’s opening scenes, we watch Lee move emotionlessly through his day as a maintenance man making repairs in a Boston apartment complex, hours away from Manchester where he formerly lived. His affect is flat, his bodily movements arrhythmic; he appears to be a body and a soul hollowed out.
In his book, In an Unspoken Voice, trauma expert Peter Levine uses the term “emotionally off line” to describe some of the trauma victims he has encountered. These individuals are unable to express emotions, because the part of their brains responsible for the expression of emotion is constricted by bound-up traumatic energy. They are jammed up. This describes Lee to a tee.
Movie audiences need not be fooled by Lee’s periodic and seemingly unprovoked violent outbursts; they are not productive discharges of pent-up energy leading to some form of cathartic healing. Rather, Lee’s outbursts are fitful posttraumatic eruptions of a badly damaged autonomic nervous system - a system no longer able to process successfully the types of stress brought on by actual or perceived threats. Mr. Lonergan should be credited - or more aptly put, applauded - for understanding this crucially important distinction and for not taking his audience down a sentimental journey of character transformation and renewal when this would not be plausible.
Patrick’s father has died of congestive heart failure, but he appears to be more affected by the possible disruption of his life in Manchester - school, hockey, girlfriends, and rock-n-roll band - than his father’s passing. Unlike his Uncle Lee - whose loss (the movie will eventually reveal) was sudden, devastating, and most importantly, unexpected - Patrick has long known of his father’s heart ailment, so his premature death is not entirely unexpected. Toward the movie’s end, Patrick’s grief is finally triggered and he does have a mini-emotional breakdown, but it is clearly not the result of trauma. He is not experiencing symptoms of posttraumatic stress, but rather the beginnings of a normal grieving process. All things considered, he will likely be all right.
One of the more powerful scenes in the movie occurs when Lee runs into his ex-wife on a Manchester street. She has remarried and has had another child since their divorce many years earlier. She wants to talk about the awful thing that happened to them, to their family. She wants to meet for lunch. She longs to apologize for the awful things she said to him during their divorce. But Lee can’t do lunch - no less take in a word of what she is saying - her attempts at apology, to make amends. “I can’t beat it,” he utters. “I can’t beat it.”
In essence, Lee is asserting that his loss is so painfully overwhelming that he can’t bear to be near his ex-wife or anything else associated with a tragedy that has befallen them - in the city of Manchester By The (Turbulent) Sea. It is too deeply triggering.
I found this portrayal so moving, so honest, so true. This is what posttraumatic stress looks like. This is the film’s finest moment.
Is there any help for Lee? It is hard to say. Assisting someone like Lee would be akin to the feeding work that is done in the treatment of anorexic patients. In some cases, they are helped to take in food one tiny morsel at a time, careful not to overwhelm their metabolic systems. The same is true of trauma victims who have gone "off line" emotionally. Asking them to describe their traumatic experience in any way initially could be emotionally overwhelming and lead to re-traumatization. They first need to be encouraged to do a mindful accounting of their immediate environment to stimulate the senses gently. Simply describing the colors in a painting, the shape of a flower, or what an armchair feels like beneath their fingers can be the beginning of a process of emotional reengagement, one brief exercise at a time.
Sometimes, for trauma victims suffering from this type of posttraumatic stress, simply getting back on line emotionally is enough. Others go further and experience differing forms of resilience. In either case, one must affirm and respect the resources that a traumatized person draws from. In Manchester By The Sea, Mr. Lonergan does just that.
Roger Keizerstein, LCSW, is a Long Island-based pediatric clinical social worker and certified trauma professional. He has been in private practice for 35 years. His stories and essays have appeared in Newsday, The New York Times, and Listen Magazine. He gives PowerPoint presentations on trauma and posttraumatic stress. Roger Keizerstein can be reached at rogerbrian@aol.com.