I'm starting to see quite a lot of talk about collective trauma pop up, although that might just be because I'm looking into it myself, but I'm excited to see so much interest. I hope that we can take the next step into collective healing with this new wave of focus on trauma, but I'm also wary of what feels like inevitable backlash, considering our history. What can we do to prevent trauma research and discussion from being driven again from the public consciousness by people who would rather not acknowledge the problem?
Wow, this is great! I haven't yet read the article, but I will do so now.
It's obvious to me that these statements about the relationship between trauma and efforts to transform communities of all kinds is importantly true. In particular, relational trauma is woven deeply into the fabric of the dominant / dominator culture. Indeed, relational trauma almost entirely explains and defines the dominant / dominator culture's behavior and habits. (Relational trauma isn't best understood as exclusively about "attachment disturbances" between children and their adult caregivers or parents. It's bigger than that by far, and extends into the entire relational field. But you know that.)
I posted a link to this post in the Deep Tranformation Network space. Are you the Matthew Green who is registered there at DTN? It might be good to encourage discussion on this topic and theme there in DTN. I surely would like to discuss it further.
I believe there is a serious problem with this quote:
“Trauma is a near-universal part of the human experience and an invisible force contributing to the “stuckness” of virtually all social systems—including child welfare, criminal justice, education, health care, and housing—even as humanity barrels headlong into the most destructive systemic breakdown of all: the climate crisis that threatens life on Earth."
The quote is otherwise insightful and brilliant, but it is wrong to frame "the most destructive systemic breakdown on Earth" as "the climate crisis". Indeed, now that the climate crisis has gained so much awareness and attention, as such, it's now time to re-frame that crisis as one of the many symptoms of a metacrisis or polycrisis. There is the overall ecological polycrisis / metacrisis, which itself is a subset of a larger metacrisis. This ecological crisis, which is a crisis of overshoot (not merely of population numbers, but of ecological harms), has to be addressed as a whole. And we can't do this when we frame the climate crisis as independently existing, rather than woven together with the biodiversity crisis ... and all of the transgressions of planetary boundaries (as listed here -https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html )
Just last week I toured Laura Plantation in Vacherie, LA, an incredible history tour of a family and the enslavement of over 100 people when it was a sugar plantation. Towards the end of the tour, I whispered to the tour guide—this is really a culture built on trauma. She was taken aback, then leaned in and said, I don’t think I could have said that any better myself. All the frustration and books and scholarship and marching and riots and bloodshed from the years of this stained US history is frankly the most rational response of generational survivors wanting to be heard and their pain acknowledged. As someone who experienced childhood trauma, I see this so clearly. Glad it’s beginning to land thinking and a framework around it.
I agree with James' statement about the transgression of planetary boundaries and, I would add, a crisis of human consciousness originating in colonisation and the suppression of indigenous knowledge of our interbeing, our interconnection body, mind, emotions, Spirit within the whole web of life. PS Stanford, in its grab for subscribers, makes the article difficult to share!
I'm starting to see quite a lot of talk about collective trauma pop up, although that might just be because I'm looking into it myself, but I'm excited to see so much interest. I hope that we can take the next step into collective healing with this new wave of focus on trauma, but I'm also wary of what feels like inevitable backlash, considering our history. What can we do to prevent trauma research and discussion from being driven again from the public consciousness by people who would rather not acknowledge the problem?
Wow, this is great! I haven't yet read the article, but I will do so now.
It's obvious to me that these statements about the relationship between trauma and efforts to transform communities of all kinds is importantly true. In particular, relational trauma is woven deeply into the fabric of the dominant / dominator culture. Indeed, relational trauma almost entirely explains and defines the dominant / dominator culture's behavior and habits. (Relational trauma isn't best understood as exclusively about "attachment disturbances" between children and their adult caregivers or parents. It's bigger than that by far, and extends into the entire relational field. But you know that.)
I posted a link to this post in the Deep Tranformation Network space. Are you the Matthew Green who is registered there at DTN? It might be good to encourage discussion on this topic and theme there in DTN. I surely would like to discuss it further.
I believe there is a serious problem with this quote:
“Trauma is a near-universal part of the human experience and an invisible force contributing to the “stuckness” of virtually all social systems—including child welfare, criminal justice, education, health care, and housing—even as humanity barrels headlong into the most destructive systemic breakdown of all: the climate crisis that threatens life on Earth."
The quote is otherwise insightful and brilliant, but it is wrong to frame "the most destructive systemic breakdown on Earth" as "the climate crisis". Indeed, now that the climate crisis has gained so much awareness and attention, as such, it's now time to re-frame that crisis as one of the many symptoms of a metacrisis or polycrisis. There is the overall ecological polycrisis / metacrisis, which itself is a subset of a larger metacrisis. This ecological crisis, which is a crisis of overshoot (not merely of population numbers, but of ecological harms), has to be addressed as a whole. And we can't do this when we frame the climate crisis as independently existing, rather than woven together with the biodiversity crisis ... and all of the transgressions of planetary boundaries (as listed here -https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html )
Just last week I toured Laura Plantation in Vacherie, LA, an incredible history tour of a family and the enslavement of over 100 people when it was a sugar plantation. Towards the end of the tour, I whispered to the tour guide—this is really a culture built on trauma. She was taken aback, then leaned in and said, I don’t think I could have said that any better myself. All the frustration and books and scholarship and marching and riots and bloodshed from the years of this stained US history is frankly the most rational response of generational survivors wanting to be heard and their pain acknowledged. As someone who experienced childhood trauma, I see this so clearly. Glad it’s beginning to land thinking and a framework around it.
I agree with James' statement about the transgression of planetary boundaries and, I would add, a crisis of human consciousness originating in colonisation and the suppression of indigenous knowledge of our interbeing, our interconnection body, mind, emotions, Spirit within the whole web of life. PS Stanford, in its grab for subscribers, makes the article difficult to share!
Just gone to being a paid subscriber - such unique insights here, worth it. Thanks for doing it Matthew,