Marks of Mystery

Rumsey's academic work got a real-world endorsement in 1992 when James Partridge launched Changing Faces, an English support organization for people with facial disfigurements. Partridge, who had been severely burned in a car fire when he was 18 years old, had written a book about living with scars (Changing Faces: The Challenge of Facial Disfigurement Phoenix Society, 1992). "There is a point at which my scars became less repellent and more attractive," observes Partridge, now 46. "I don't think it had anything to do with their physical appearance. I think it had a lot to do with the coping skills I developed."

In some ways, Partridge believes, unintended scars can enhance someone's attractiveness by forcing him to develop extraordinary self-assurance. "I doubt very much whether the woman who was attracted to the Austrian duelist was actually attracted by the physical touch of the scars," he says. "It was his stature, his posture, his way of looking her in the eye--his entire physical chemistry, if there is such a term. It's not the scar itself that's attractive, but the person who shines out from behind this scarred face."

The trouble is, many people with facial scars find themselves locked into a social death spiral. When strangers stare or flinch, they respond by withdrawing--which further undermines their social dexterity. So Rumsey began looking for ways to help patients get past those painful first meetings. "You've got to learn how first impressions are formed," Rumsey says. "Let's find techniques of showing them what a witty person you are, what fun you are to be with, and develop a repertoire of things to talk about for a minute or two until that other person settles down. If you can achieve the confidence to depersonalize other people's reactions, it ceases to be a problem."

Rumsey studied the effects of Changing Faces' workshops, which bring together small groups of facially disfigured people to share their experiences and develop some practical strategies for dealing with socially stressful situations. She found that workshop participants did report significant improvement in their ability to handle strangers. However, since all the participants were self-referred, it wasn't clear whether the workshop solutions would work for less-motivated patients. So Rumsey created a pilot project to offer similar interventions to a broader group. "We set up a kind of disfigurement support unit," she says, asking for doctors to refer anyone with a facial scar. That research is still ongoing (slowed, in part, by some medical doctors' resistance to referring patients for psychological counseling).

Right now, the biggest challenge is convincing doctors and patients that the story behind the injury is just as important to the healing process as the wound itself. "Some injuries are much more difficult to carry, because they're much more difficult to explain," Rumsey says. A scar inflicted during the heroic rescue of a child trapped in a burning building inspires admiration, but no one is likely to be too sympathetic when a scarred person admits being injured while driving drunk. Adds Rumsey: "If you can help them to think up a good reason behind the injury, something they feel more confident and happy with, it's so much easier to handle the inevitable questions."

Those questions, however rude, reflect our hard-wired human curiosity about scars. When we see a scarred face, we instinctively find our eyes drawn to it, and our minds drawn to the story that scar may tell; a few insignificant decades of socialization are no match for millions of years of natural selection. "If people look different, they almost become public property," Rumsey notes. "You can't sit on a train or walk down a street without people staring. When you walk around with a very visible disfigurement, you know that everyone wants to ask, `What happened to you?'"

PHOTOS (COLOR): Many African tribal cultures still use "body art"--tattooing, branding, piercing and intentional scarring--to proclaim their ancient lineage, display their bravery and attract potential mates.