Transforming Historical Trauma through Dialogue

David S. Derezotes

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781412996150
• eBook ISBN: 9781483315911
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Counseling

Today there is evidence that most minority groups in the United States suffer from symptoms related to intergenerational transmission of collective historical trauma. For those with additional mental health issues, treatment can become complicated unless underlying historical hostilities are addressed.

This practical text, by David S. Derezotes, helps readers understand the causes and treatment of historical trauma at an individual, group, and community level and demonstrates how a participatory, strengths-based approach can work effectively in its treatment. The first to offer a combination of theory, literature review, and practice knowledge on dialogue, this book begins with a definition of historical trauma and transformation, includes the dialogue necessary to aid in transformation (such as self-care, self-awareness and professional self- development). The author proposes six key models of dialogue practice—psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral, experiential, transpersonal, biological, and ecological—and shows how these models can be used to help transform sociohistorical trauma in clients. He then applies these six dialogue models to five common practice settings, including work with community divides, social justice work, peace and conflict work, dialogues with populations across the lifespan, and community therapy.

SECTION I

Sociohistorical Trauma, Transformation, and Dialogue

Dialogue Models for Transforming Sociohistorical Trauma

INTRODUCTION TO SECTION I

Interpersonal violence is a monologue—a disconnection from self and the world, a one-way conversation that silences the other and makes dialogue unsafe. The silencing can continue well after the initial violence ends, as recipients of violence and even their descendants become disempowered, lose their ability to grow and develop, and become disconnected from the world.

Interpersonal violence often leads to further violence. Recipients seek revenge and retaliate, creating ongoing cycles of perpetration and victimization. Perpetrators of violence may be no more well off than victims, often living in a state of disconnection, fear, uncertainty, and hypervigilance.

Interpersonal violence creates sociohistorical trauma, which is any ongoing reaction to the initial violence. On the individual level, sociohistorical trauma is characterized by any physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual reactions that usually vary with each individual context. When a child is maltreated by a parent, for example, she may become unable to defend herself, express her pain, ask for what she wants, learn in school, or even experience her own memories and other emotions. Another maltreated child may deal with her pain by victimizing other children in school or by abusing her own children when she becomes a parent.

On the collective (or “macro”) level, sociohistorical trauma is characterized by the substitution of power, aggression, and control for relationship. Aggression and control can be inflicted on the community or on other communities. Throughout history, for example, when slavery has been perpetuated upon populations of people, they may experience loss of self-respect and dignity and sometimes respond with behaviors that are destructive to themselves and to others. Sociohistorical trauma can lead to ongoing cycles of revengeful violence between large groups, such as what we see today in ethnic conflicts, for example, in the Balkans, Central Africa, and the Middle East. Or women have historically been oppressed by men in many families, institutions, and communities, and many women may still carry “internalized oppression” and understandably hold resentment toward men.

Sociohistorical trauma may be the most dangerous form of trauma. Humans seem to naturally want to make sense out of suffering. When our pain seems to come from “natural” causes, such as earthquakes, storms, or even wild animals, we may view the events as “acts of God” (if religious) or perhaps as “events in a chaotic world” (if not so religious). When suffering seems to be caused by other people, we are tempted to react with anger and seek revenge toward those we see belonging to the perpetrator-group. Such reactions can lead to cycles of retaliation lasting years, decades, and even centuries.

Members of trauma-recipient groups may remain silenced and unable to engage in constructive dialogues. They may also justify their own self-destructive behaviors as well as their retaliatory behaviors. Obviously, our human tendency to seek revenge is an individual, family, community, and global problem that, with the development of weapons of mass destruction, now threatens the development and even survival of humanity. Such trauma, when still not transformed, inhibits the cooperation required to ensure our collective survival and postsurvival growth. When people go “out of relationship” and into cycles of self-destruction, violence, retaliation, and hatred, they cannot work together to find common solutions to such global survival threats as overpopulation, preparations for war, ecosystem destruction, and water and air pollution.

There is reason for hope. Our capacity to destroy each other through violence is matched by our current ability to also co-create a better world. We have the technology to reduce such global survival threats as overpopulation, global warming, ecosystem destruction, and urban poverty. Our global priority now must be to learn how to live cooperatively, so we can co-create the best world our descendants could receive from us.

Following sociohistorical trauma, a person or community can experience transformations toward greater empowerment, growth, and connection. Dialogue can help build the kind of relationships necessary for cooperation, even between trauma-recipient and trauma-perpetrator groups. Dialogue puts the value of relationship higher than the value of what we create with our hands (e.g., wealth, power, status) and minds (e.g., beliefs, ideologies).

This text is about dialogic transformation of sociohistorical, or human-caused, trauma. Dialogue, as presented here, is the self-reflective and relationship-building process that can help transform violence into peaceful, mutual cooperation. Sociohistorical trauma is violence perpetuated by people on other people and may be primary (experienced firsthand) and/or secondary (experienced through my friends, family, ancestors).

Section I, with five chapters, provides a foundation for the dialogue models presented in the rest of the book. Each chapter summarizes the multidisciplinary literature on the featured subject. Although these first chapters are some of the most heavily referenced in the text, these subjects cannot be completely covered in any single chapter.

The first chapter presents a summary of the current relevant literature on sociohistorical trauma. Since most of the literature on trauma is not specifically about sociohistorical trauma, much of this chapter covers the current literature on trauma. A multidisciplinary review of the literature on transformation follows in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 presents a summary of the literature on dialogue. Chapter 4 presents the personal/professional development of dialogue facilitators. Finally, Chapter 5 offers a review of the basic phases, tasks, and issues in dialogue.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING I.1

(1) Have you experienced any kind of violence perpetuated by other people upon you? Did it tend to silence you, either at the time or later on in your life?

(2) What conditions in a relationship or larger group make you feel safe enough to have dialogue? Has dialogue ever helped you positively transform your own sociohistorical trauma?

(3) Why is sociohistorical trauma a particularly dangerous form of trauma, especially in our world today?

CHAPTER 1

What Is Sociohistorical Trauma?

What Is Historical Trauma?

Historical trauma is a reaction to violent experience that challenges the person to develop new ways of thinking and behaving. There are many kinds of traumatizing events, of course, and individuals may respond very differently to the same event. The kinds of experiences that may traumatize us include life-threatening events such as violent crime, a tsunami, or a serious accident. People can also be traumatized by loss or anticipated loss of a loved one, a job, physical or mental health, or lover. Trauma is sociohistorical when perpetrated by people on people, such as in child maltreatment, domestic violence, or war.

Historical trauma has helped design the architecture of human beings. Probably everything we feel, think, and do reflects at least in part the ways our ancestors responded to challenges they faced in the past. Our current theories suggest that human responses to trauma influence not only the individual across the life span but also the traits of our descendants.

Nature tends to create especially powerful memories of threatening events. This is because organisms that respond effectively to threats in the environment tend to survive, and powerful memories are more likely to be remembered. Threatening events often challenge us to develop new ways of thinking or acting that may help us cope with future challenges.

In a human being, historical trauma seems to be stored in an evolving “memory complex,” which contains many forms of information. Each person responds to these memories in unique ways that reflect her own internal and external world. Thus, we can say that historical trauma is an “ecobiopsychosocialspiritual” process, in that ecological, biological, psychological, social, and spiritual elements are all involved. Another way to express this is that trauma is a body-mind-spirit-environment process. Ecological processes include influences of family, culture, community, and the local ecosystem. The biology of trauma includes evolution, neurological processes, and overall physical health. The person’s formal and informal social supports, psychological well-being, and spiritual beliefs about herself and her world also affect the trauma process.

The many impacts of historical trauma are influenced or mitigated not only by the nature of the traumatizing threat but also by a multitude of other genetic, epigenetic, environmental, and “epi-environmental” influences.

Genetic influences are potential traits that can be passed on to a person by her parents through her genome. Although scientists do not yet even agree on what a “gene” is, we know that complex traits can be expressed through combinations of genes. Many so-called personality traits are considered to be largely genetic; one example would be the tendency toward what we call introversion or extroversion, which can be modified across the life span but tends to be fairly stable.

Epigenetic influences are those that may influence the expression of genetic traits. Most epigenetic influences can also be viewed as being associated with environmental conditions. Scientists have discovered that some genetic traits can be expressed or repressed when humans experience prenatal or postnatal trauma. For example, if a mother experiences extreme stress during a pregnancy, she may activate epigenetic processes that express genetic material that creates a heightened state of preparedness for stress in her child’s life.

Environmental influences are any life experiences that result in physiological, emotional, cognitive, social, and other changes in the person. Common environmental influences include factors in the family, culture, and community such as child maltreatment, poverty, or racism.

Finally, epi-environmental influences are those that mitigate env...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Brief Contents
• Detailed Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Section I: Sociohistorical Trauma, Transformation, and Dialogue: Dialogue Models for Transforming Sociohistorical Trauma
• Section II: Dialogue Models
• Section III: Dialogue Applications
• Index
• About the Author