Complex trauma is in our house now: Courtenay Stallings, author of Laura’s Ghost: Women Speak About Twin Peaks

2025-02-01

Why is Laura Palmer a heroine for many of us? Because David Lynch's depiction of her in the Twin Peaks franchise was one of the first and remains one of the most powerful depictions of complex trauma from child sexual abuse. In this interview with professor and writer Courtenay Stallings, we talk about her wonderful book, Laura’s Ghost: Women Speak About Twin Peaks, and how the late, great Lynch catalyzed discussions of the long-neglected topic of abuse -- with which, unfortunately, so many of us with BPD are famil...

Why is Laura Palmer a heroine for many of us? Because David Lynch's depiction of her in the Twin Peaks franchise was one of the first and remains one of the most powerful depictions of complex trauma from child sexual abuse. In this interview with professor and writer Courtenay Stallings, we talk about her wonderful book, Laura’s Ghost: Women Speak About Twin Peaks, and how the late, great Lynch catalyzed discussions of the long-neglected topic of abuse -- with which, unfortunately, so many of us with BPD are familiar.

Trigger warning for child sexual abuse.

Courtenay Stalling’s Laura’s Ghost: Women Speak about Twin Peaks: https://www.tuckerdspress.com/product-page/laura-s-ghost

Courtenay Stallings, "Twin Peaks: The Return as Subversive Fairy Tale." Supernatural Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, 2019, pp. 98-116.

Julian D. Ford and Christine A. Courtois, “Complex PTSD and Borderline Personality Disorder”: https://bpded.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40479-021-00155-9

Sigmund Freud’s on the uncanny: https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf

Cynthia Gralla, “A Woman in Trouble: My Life and Illnesses Filtered through Twin Peaks”: https://witness.blackmountaininstitute.org/issues-4-2/spring-2021/

David Lynch, dir., Twin Peaks, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and The Return

Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score

Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

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