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)
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)
