I am delighted to announce the launch of the Collective Trauma and Healing project website developed by a team of Suffolk University faculty and students. In today’s post I share a bit about how the framework of collective trauma allowed me clearer understandings of the trauma I’ve documented in the past, and — more importantly, helped me think creatively about collective healing.
Some Background
Trauma and PTSD are mantras running through nearly all my conversations with marginalized and criminalized women in the Boston metropolitan area over the past fifteen years. Most of the forty or so women I have come to know describe themselves as living with trauma and PTSD, or even as “being PTSD” (sic.). They speak fluently about the traumatic experiences they have had and how those experiences shape their lives. Trauma and PTSD, for many, had become a core component of personal identity.
Most of the women have been in individual and group therapy, outpatient and inpatient therapeutic programs, and myriad “trauma informed” institutions from the time they were children well up into their forties. Their self-descriptions echo the language and assessments of the many therapists, caseworkers, attorneys, clinicians, housing specialists, probation officers, prison staff, etc. who treat (or punish) criminalized and marginalized women for their individual problems.
The Appeal of Trauma
I don’t want to minimize the trauma these women experienced over their lives. Many were sexually abused as children, or physically abused or neglected. Many were out on the own at young ages, vulnerable to exploitation by older men, boyfriends, and drug dealers. They dealt with homelessness, loss of custody of their children, repeated sexual violations, serious illnesses and injuries. They also deal with arrests and incarceration which in and of itself exacerbates trauma through strip-searches, lack of privacy, pervasive yelling and threats, and family separation. I have written about these and other horrors throughout this website.
In this essay, I want to zoom in on a particular issue: The way the women, as well as their therapeutic mentors, talk about trauma. The language of trauma offers confirmation that the horrors one has experienced are indeed true and horrible, and many women find comfort or even pride in that acknowledgment. At the same time, trauma discourse individualizes the problems both in retrospect and in the present. I commonly heard sentences like, “The therapist told me that I have to learn not to make bad decisions.” “I learned I have a habit of choosing the wrong men.” “I have to stop being a ‘shit magnet.'” And, most problematically, “I have to stop blaming others or ‘the system’ for my problems.”
There is a lot to unpack in these declarations, but for now I want to emphasize the individualizing framework for talking about their experiences. In prison and drug treatment centers and homeless shelters women spend nights and days with other women who suffered in similar ways. Yet the message drilled in nearly every therapeutic encounter is that it’s wrong to blame your suffering on others or on systems (that’s “denial”) and that it’s best to avoid getting wrapped up in other women’s misery. Repeatedly I’d hear statements like this from a woman just out of treatment or jail: “I need to focus on me. Like on an airplane you need to put the oxygen mask on yourself first. My weakness is that always try to take care of others and get distracted by their problems, but to get better I have to come first. It’s me time.” [This is an amalgam of phrases and sentences I’ve heard from many women.]
For most marginalized and criminalized women there are no good choices when so many outcomes are determined by factors beyond their control (such as changes in funding for specific types of housing programs, SSI payments that are insufficient to live one.) And being a ‘shit magnet’ may be unavoidable when you lack secure housing. But contrary to the therapeutic wisdom, there often is great value in helping others – that’s how one builds social capital (a safety net) that can be drawn on during the really hard times. Unfortunately, throughout the circuit of therapeutic and corrective institutions and programs these connections are identified as “unhealthy” and women are told to work only on themselves.
A New Model
Last year my friend and colleague Debra Harkins introduced me to the concept of “collective trauma.” Collective trauma recognizes that experiences of violence and disruption often impact groups or populations – and not simply unfortunate individuals. These experiences may lead to long-term health and social challenges at both individual and community levels. Recognition of collective trauma allows for deeper understanding of how identifiable social forces (for example, gender-based violence) harm whole communities or populations. Thus, rather than seeing oneself as an especially unlucky ‘shit magnet’ who always makes bad decisions, one can join with others and explore the social structures and policies and circumstances that traumatize whole groups or communities. Most importantly, that recognition is the first step to meaningful collective healing.
There is a lot more work to do both in terms of understanding and developing this model, and in terms of teaching and disseminating it. But for the first time in a long time I feel that I’m able to use language that makes sense: collective trauma acknowledges both individual pain and the collective nature of the sources, experiences, and solutions to pain. That acknowledgment facilitates respect and compassion for individuals together with a commitment to working together to address the social policies and structures that continue to hurt and traumatize.
If this speaks to you, I encourage you to check out the brand new website launched today by the Collective Trauma and Healing Project: collectivetraumanandhealing.org as well as our LinkedIn group .
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.