Honeyman tempers this seriousness of Eleanor’s trauma with the comic relief Eleanor provides through her frequent social faux pas. Other literary works that feature protagonists coming to terms with personal or inherited traumas are Jazz by Toni Morrison (1992), the memoir Educated by Tara Westover (2018), and Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home (2006). The diagnostic category of the disorder has changed over time-for example, the DSM-IV (published in 1994) classified PTSD as an anxiety disorder, whereas the DSM-5 (published in 2013) classifies PTSD under a new category, “Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders.”Įleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine explores Eleanor’s journey toward understanding and accepting her repressed childhood traumas. The disorder first appeared in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a publication used by medical and legal professionals to classify mental disorders, in 1980, the DSM-III in 1980.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder as a term came into common usage in the 1970s, resulting from the diagnoses of U.S. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine was published in 2017, by which time PTSD had been an official psychiatric diagnosis for nearly 40 years. Not all individuals exposed to trauma will develop PTSD, but those who do may suffer from disturbing thoughts or feelings when exposed to trauma-related cues or triggers.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that can occur after an individual is exposed to an act of trauma, for example, sexual assault, war, and child abuse, among other acts of violence.

Today’s accepted understanding of psychological trauma is that it is caused by stress that results from an exposure to a triggering stimulus. Although the doctor diagnoses Eleanor with depression and not posttraumatic stress disorder, trauma and abuse are thematically important to the novel, so it’s relevant to understand the historical development of trauma as a mental health condition.

Eleanor oliphant is fine