PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Brad Bolman
TI  - Parroting patriots: interspecies trauma and becoming-well-together
AID  - 10.1136/medhum-2018-011630
DP  - 2019 Sep 01
TA  - Medical Humanities
PG  - 305--312
VI  - 45
IP  - 3
4099  - http://mh.bmj.com/content/45/3/305.short
4100  - http://mh.bmj.com/content/45/3/305.full
SO  - J Med Humanit2019 Sep 01; 45
AB  - At a Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center in West Los Angeles, traumatised parrots and former soldiers participate in an experimental therapy programme aimed at overcoming the wounds of war and abandonment. Drawing on the work of Giorgio Agamben and Peter Sloterdijk, this article uses the VA parrot therapy programme to develop an interspecies account of trauma in and beyond language that emphasises the dangers of isolation and denaturalisation. Looking after parrots, veterans reacclimate themselves to an alternative mode of existence centred around care for the other. This article reflects on the possibilities for therapeutic encounter-value in processes such as this, where humans and non-humans are ‘becoming-well-together’. At stake in these multispecies encounters is a form of care critical for a world filled with too many traumatised beings.