Catherine Liu's 'Traumatized' Links Trauma Narrative to Capitalist Control

Catherine Liu, a film and media studies professor at the University of California, Irvine, examines in her book 'Traumatized' how the trauma plot has become a dominant cultural framework that interprets personal hardship as stemming from past psychological wounds. She links its emergence to 19th-century privately funded child-welfare initiatives and later feminist movements that emphasized individual trauma over class struggle.

Liu argues that contemporary capitalism exploits this framework by packaging poverty, overwork and insecurity as private traumas to be managed through self-help, therapy and corporate wellness, thereby shifting blame onto workers. The book presents the trauma narrative as a Marxist critique of liberalism, describing it as a social-control mechanism that suppresses working-class politics and erodes collective reasoning about material reality.

Liu also critiques how prominent figures across the political spectrum employ trauma stories to gain influence, reinforcing the plot’s power. The work calls for a return to collective analysis of structural inequality rather than privatized suffering.