Escapism as a response to trauma

This project examines escapism as a cognitive and philosophical response to trauma, through an interdisciplinary analysis of Jack Finney’s The Third Level and the clinical features of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Drawing from philosophical theories the project explores how altered perceptions of reality emerge as structured responses to psychological fragmentation. Cognitive trauma studies, particularly the work of van der Kolk (2014), provide the clinical grounding for dissociation as a neuropsychological mechanism of self-preservation. Through the integration of literary analysis, philosophical reasoning, and psychological theory, escapism is reframed not as passive withdrawal, but as a logical, symbolic, and sometimes therapeutic adaptation to existential rupture.