Hauntology: the ghosts of Korean trauma

Courtesy of Yoan

David A. Tizzard

Any reader of my column will recognize that I have a largely positive view of Korea, its people and its society. I recently categorized the nation as "antifragile" because it has not only continually demonstrated the quality of being able to overcome great adversity, it has also achieved remarkable success. While other nations might have succumbed to the lingering effects of colonization, civil war, and military dictatorship, Korea has fought its way through them and achieved a series of revolutions (economic, political and cultural) to establish itself as a place of relative luxury, freedom and desire.

But does such a perspective miss something? If Korea is so successful, what about the constant reports of unhappiness and anxiety that seem to persist? In seeking answers to these questions, I was grateful to be able to sit down with the popular psychologist Seoneulhan yeoreumbam (real name Lee Seo-hyun) this week and listen to stories and reflections that I might have otherwise been blind to. You can find the whole conversation here.

The contradiction of empathy

Seobam (as she is commonly known) has resonated with many here in Korea because of her ability to speak honestly and directly about the reality of life. Although she has a master’s in psychology from Korea University and is now completing her PhD, her work online deals with the day-to-day problems that millions experience. Seobam also has the courage to speak about her failures, her own struggles with depression and the necessity of medication like Prozac just to maintain a base level of feeling.

Because I’ve never really suffered from depression or serious mental health issues, I’ve often generalized my own experiences on to others around me. At times, it has led me to incorrectly characterizing others who do shake under the weight of such burdens as weak. “Why can’t they be more like me?” I think to myself. And yet, of course they can’t. Their genetics, their upbringing, their family situation, and their history are all so incredibly different. One of the biggest challenges in taking an empathetic approach to life is finding the common humanity we all share while at the same time acknowledging the many differences we exhibit. It’s a contradiction not easily navigated.

One of the solutions I’ve found is to talk to people. To ask them what’s going on. To discover how they feel. To listen to them. To see what fears they have. To learn what makes them happy. And to try to understand how they experience consciousness. This idea has fascinated me since learning about the various numbers of voices that exist in people’s heads. Some have many, some have one, some have none. Some voices are nice, some aggressive, and others incessant in their chatting. Seobam described this to me using a familiar analogy: “The self is the driver of a car; the ego is the passenger talking to us,” she said. The metaphor of the self being the "driver" of the car implies that the self is the guiding force behind one's actions and decisions. It suggests a deeper, more fundamental aspect of the individual that directs their behavior and choices. Meanwhile, the ego being the "passenger talking to us" indicates that the ego is a more superficial or secondary aspect of the self. It's the voice in our heads that narrates our experiences, interprets events, and interacts with the external world. This metaphor is designed to teach us that the ego is not the true source of our identity or agency but rather a construct that communicates with us and influences our perceptions and behaviors. The conflict between these two people in the car can cause great discomfort, particularly as our egos run away with us in the modern world. Many navigate the roads safely. Sadly, others crash or fail to make it to their destination at all.

The trauma of War: 6.25

Korean people refer to the Korean War (1950-1953), a civil war that devastated its land and people, taking anywhere between 2-3 million lives, the majority of them civilians, simply as yuk-e-o, referring to the date on which it began: June 25th. In the west, people have often declared it the Forgotten War, coming in between World War II and the Vietnam War and receiving little in the way of cultural representation through movies or political acknowledgement. The war seems a long time ago when you are sat in a coffee shop in downtown Seoul. It feels like something that never happened. A bad dream. A story we are told to remind us to be grateful, but something not necessarily internalized. Yawning through another rendition of a nativity play or some such. Yes, yes, Jesus said be nice and Buddha told us nothing really matters.

For Seobam, the Korean War is still alive. It haunts present society in ways that we are sometimes unconscious of. It lingers, a specter of the past infiltrating our luxury, comfort and modern lifestyles. She speaks of how her grandmother went through war and was heavily traumatized by the experience. And while not every experience was the same, her grandmother’s generation received serious trauma from the conflict as it unfolded. This trauma was then passed down to the next generation of Korean people: Seobam’s parents. It would be easy to stop at this point and say that people who did not directly experience a tragedy have little reason to be traumatized, but that would be missing the important ways in which nature and nurture shape us.

When a generation of people experience the devastating conflict of war, Seobam asks, how can they be educated as to the proper (modern) ways of parenting? How can they understand how to pass on love? A friend, Keiko Hagihara Bang, put this better than me: “Historical trauma creates incredible resilience and extraordinary ambition for economic stability but at a great cost to mental health and the ability to love well — for example allowing family members their own agency, nurturing independence of thought and feeling, being present in the family space and letting kids feel they are okay and loved without being linked to achievement. These are things that are needed when you are very young but in a state of emergency are impossible to provide and a luxury.” In this way, therefore, a second generation of people were traumatized.

4th generation love

Seobam points to a saying that when war occurs, it affects three generations of people. She, therefore, believes that her generation is the last to feel the effects of the war. From this then comes a responsibility: to stop the trauma and to pass on love. We have the luxury now of temporal distance. We have the luxury of economic affluence. Luxuries that were provided by the backbreaking efforts and incredible intestinal fortitude of those who came before us. But now we need something else. We need acceptance, acknowledgement, and humanity.

For Seobam, this can come through psychotherapy: She defines this as purposeful dialogue to solve patients’ problems. Ultimately, the main goal of this talking therapy is love. To not only learn to love others, but also to learn to love yourself. And to do so properly. Korean society now has the ability to do that. Taboos around counselling, mental health treatment, and medication have all changed rather dramatically in the last decade or so, and they will likely continue to do so.

Seobam, like the popular Mark Manson video she recently appeared in, believes that Korea is the most depressed nation in the world. But maybe it doesn’t have to be. Perhaps, the ghosts of the past will find peace. Will rest, remembered but, at the same time, forgotten. And when the spirits of war are laid down, love can finally flourish and the dreams, once nightmares, can become something different. Dreams of our own. Where we are haunted no more. But instead smile.

Dr. David A. Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) has a Ph.D. in Korean Studies and lectures at Seoul Women's University and Hanyang University. He is a social-cultural commentator and musician who has lived in Korea for nearly two decades. He is also the host of the "Korea Deconstructed" podcast, which can be found online.