Healing Collective Trauma
  • Home
  • Interviews
    • Sousan Abadian: From Slavery to Freedom
    • Ray Daw: From the Spirit and the Heart
    • Kindred Collective: Wellness Within Liberation >
      • Cara Page
      • Paulina Helm-Hernandez
    • Armand Volkas: Healing the Wounds of History
  • Articles
    • Valdez: Healing from the Collective Trauma of Mass Shootings
    • Powell: After George Floyd, Glimmers of Hope
    • Yuko: Covid19 and Collective Trauma
    • Figley: Confronting and Treating Collective Trauma
    • O'Neill: Mourning Paradise: Collective Trauma in a Town Destroyed
    • Gross: Are Americans Experiencing Collective Trauma?
    • Bagri: An Unfortunate Side Effect of Collective Identity is Collective Trauma
    • Garrigues: Healing the Past
    • Stolorow: The Boston Marathon Bombings as Collective Trauma
    • DeLear: Healing Historical Trauma Will Lead to Peace in the Holy Land
    • Lambert: Trail of Tears, and Hope
    • McNeel: How Games Can Heal Historical Trauma
  • Video
    • Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart: Historical Trauma in Native Communities
    • Dr. Joy De Gruy: Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome
    • Karina Walters: Embodiment of Historical Trauma and Micro-Aggressions
    • Don Coyhis: An Intergenerational Trauma Healing Program
    • Sami Awad: Fear, Auschwitz and Non-Violence
    • Lisa G Garrigues: Healing Collective Trauma
    • Neurobiology and Transgenerational Trauma
  • Podcasts
  • Resources
  • Get Help
  • Contact
WHAT IS COLLECTIVE TRAUMA?

Collective trauma is trauma that happens to large groups of individuals and can be transmitted transgenerationally and across communities.  War, genocide, slavery, terrorism, and natural disasters can cause collective trauma, which can  be further defined as historical, ancestral, or cultural.  
Some of the symptoms of collective trauma include rage, depression, denial, survivor guilt and internalized oppression, as well as physiological changes in the brain and body which can bring on chronic disease. International relations are affected by collective and historical trauma as nations and peoples carry the weight of their own historical trauma with them as they  wage war against each other. 

Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart has identified four stages of healing historical trauma in Native communities, which could also be applied to healing any collective trauma:  confronting it, understanding it, releasing the pain of it, and transcending it. 

​This site  addresses the diverse forms of collective trauma from a cross-cultural perspective.  It originated with interviews conducted for an article on collective trauma in the summer 2013 issue of Yes Magazine.  Here you will find  further excerpts from the people interviewed, as well as articles and links about collective and historical trauma as it has affected  communities in the United States and throughout the world.  By offering some illumination through the voices on this site about  the roots and effects of  collective trauma,  we can begin to move towards the final stage of healing: transcendance. 

                                                                                                           ----Lisa Gale Garrigues

(photographs of Armand Volkas drama therapy workshop by LG Garrigues)
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.