‘Tattoo Monologues’ and treating trauma

Body art can tell personal stories. For many of these women, tattoos are a way to reclaim the past and take ownership of the future.

Listen 49:28
Jaime Arafin is one of 28 women featured in Tattoo Monologues: Indelible Marks on the Body and Soul (book photo by Ken Kauffman)

Jaime Arafin is one of 28 women featured in Tattoo Monologues: Indelible Marks on the Body and Soul (book photo by Ken Kauffman)

People living with trauma are often psychologically unable to find the words to answer the question, “What happened to you?” But a new book, The Tattoo Monologues: Indelible Marks on the Body and Soul, features dozens of women who use body art to tell their personal stories and find their way to recovery and healing. By choosing to get tattooed and enduring the pain of the needle, these women are taking back their power, and the end result is something beautiful and permanent on their skin. This hour, we’re joined by the book’s author DONNA TORRISI, a nurse practitioner who decided to capture these stories after tattoos on countless patients piqued her curiosity. Alongside her, MANYA ECHOLS, who’s featured in the book, will tell her own story. Then, we’ll hear from MEAGAN CORRADO, a social worker and trauma therapist and SANDRA BLOOM, trauma researcher and professor at Drexel University, about what’s left out of the public conversation about mental health and how trauma education is changing lives.

Subscribe for more Radio Times

WHYY is your source for fact-based, in-depth journalism and information. As a nonprofit organization, we rely on financial support from readers like you. Please give today.

Want a digest of WHYY’s programs, events & stories? Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Together we can reach 100% of WHYY’s fiscal year goal