By Whitney Marris, LCSW
The United States finds itself at a critical juncture in our history.
The multiple complex and compounding crises that continue to ripple through our society have left many feeling uncertain, unmoored, and traumatized.
COVID-19, longstanding injustices and inequities laid bare, conflict and human rights violations both at home and abroad, economic hardship growing and gaps widening, environmental degradation, political violence, and other significant issues happening individually, interpersonally, and collectively continue to perpetuate stress, fear, challenge, and trauma.
As we find ourselves in survival mode, the impacts of emerging and evolving events and realities that we must adapt and be responsive in order to survive can exhaust and deplete us. It is not unusual or nonsensical to feel a sense of futility, grief, and disempowerment about all we have endured and continue to experience as a collective.
It makes sense that we might feel called to withdraw from action to protect ourselves from the re-traumatization we are bracing for as we navigate an election cycle that looks strikingly similar to the one that came before, evoking a time of deep pain, discord, division, and disconnect.
As we see tangible, palpable harm happening in legislative action fueled by flames ignited through incendiary politicized rhetoric that keeps us complicit in preserving patterns of power that privilege the holistic well-being of some over others, however, we must not bury our heads in the sand.
There is no ambiguity about the agenda that will be pursued if more people who ascend to power operates based on values systems that directly contravene the future we have been working so hard together to build; the once-quiet parts are being said out loud, and follow-through of these words is already happening where key decisionmakers embodying harmful viewpoints stand uncontested.
This moment in history is not like watching a car crash in slow motion where there is not time for anyone to act to intervene and help. We know what needs to be done to prevent what is happening from getting worse, and we also know what it takes to secure a more compassionate, resilient, and healthy future for all.
We must not turn away, hope for the best, and passively await the consequences; it is up to each of us to rise to stand in our collective power and join in action to shift the course of history toward a future where our systems and institutions seek to secure well-being, as well as the dignity and full humanity of all people.
This article presents considerations for realizing and recognizing how we have arrived at this juncture, and also calls on advocates, activists, and partners in change to support transforming the vicious cycles that will endure without trauma-informed intervention into virtuous cycles.
We provide ideas and action steps to respond to the present and predictable patterns that will endure without collective action to disrupt them, supporting a future where the likelihood of re-traumatization is drastically reduced so that all may flourish and thrive.
Understanding Collective Trauma and Collective Disturbance
Collective trauma refers to the myriad impacts that a group of people may endure following a significant shared experience or event. A wide range of factors may lead to collective trauma, including but not limited to natural disasters, wars, pandemics, oppression, and mass violence.
Collective trauma disrupts the collective identity and functioning of a group, often contributing to a collective sense of vulnerability and altering how a group perceives themselves, others, and the broader world. Collective trauma can underscore the breakdown of social cohesion, the erosion of trust in institutions, and the perpetuation of cycles of violence, harm, and retribution.
When collective trauma happens without resolution, reconciliation, repair, and restoration, the ongoing manifestation of collective traumas can become disconnected from their root causes, where trauma responses at individual and collective levels may become subconsciously attached to and associated with unrelated situations. This can manifest what is known as collective disturbance, further complicating social dynamics, hindering rational discourse, and thwarting collaborative solution-building.
The unresolved traumas of the past, the persisting traumas of the present moment, and the uncertain traumas that are yet to come bring about ongoing disturbance and re-traumatization. We cannot fully move ourselves out of and recover from this reality until we bring collective consciousness to what is truly happening. If collective trauma remains ignored or becomes forgotten, our ability to move towards policy solutions that will create a brighter future for all is much more limited than if we work together to co-create the context and conditions for all to flourish and thrive.
The interconnections of collective disturbance and collective trauma are evident at the present moment. Cycles of collective trauma and collective disturbance both perpetuate and are perpetuated by a variety of factors, including a selected few explored below based on what we are noticing in the broader sociopolitical landscape of the here and now.
Fear, Distrust, and Susceptibility to Dis/Misinformation
Deep and existential fears, as well as feelings of distrust stemming from perceived or actual institutional betrayal in trying times, can contribute to susceptibility to misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories.
Connecting with these narratives can be understood as protective and in the interest of survival in the face of perceived threats. Political corruption, social injustices, systemic oppression, and other factors can create fertile ground for myths and misinterpretations to take root. As people and groups to which they are connected struggle to make sense of ongoing trauma and the threat of re-traumatization, they may latch firmly onto certain narratives as a means of asserting control and understanding in a chaotic world.
When systems and structures fail to support members of society, it is natural that people turn to alternative explanations and communities that evoke a sense of clarity, belonging, and safety. The proliferation of misinformation and disinformation contributes to further polarization, making it increasingly difficult to notice one another’s shared humanity and common values.
This environment of suspicion and division exacerbates collective disturbance, leading to further isolation and the preservation of power dynamics so that “nothing ever changes” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Incidentally, what is really needed at these times is a deeper connection to one another rather than disconnection, as isolation often compounds narratives organized around trauma and fear. This only serves to benefit those in positions of privilege and power who already have much more robust access to what is needed to flourish and thrive.
Building solidarity and power through collective action is critical when confronting collective trauma and the self-perpetuating cycles of disturbance and division that often result therefrom.
When institutional betrayal does occur, or the threat of institutional betrayal feels palpable, it is vital to come together to ensure systemic and structural accountability rather than continuing to blame individual people, cultures, and identity groups who often become scapegoats for the shortcomings and wrongdoings of the more macro-level conditions that are truly at the root of the dynamics that keep these cycles going. This means coming together to co-construct an action plan for demanding justice, reparation, and transformation to prevent similar harms from happening again in the future.
Challenges with Emotional Stability and Social Functioning
Strong feelings connected to political happenings and events that touch on trauma themes or seem to threaten one’s values and/or deeply rooted ways of thinking, knowing, being, doing, and relating can also impair social functioning.
Emotional dysregulation in the context of collective trauma can bring us to lose sight of one another’s humanity, manifesting as hypervigilance and heightened sensitivity to feelings of unsafety, reactivity rather than active listening, and increased conflict within communities and the broader world.
We have seen how the emotional volatility that comes from continuously standing guard against real or perceived threats can strain relationships, hinder collaboration, and create an environment where constructive dialogue feels nearly impossible.
This compounds with our individualistic social norms that also became more pronounced during our years of physical distancing, bringing many to develop survival tactics like actually assuming and expecting that others intend to engage with us in bad faith or in adversarial ways rather than earnestly, curiously, and in collaborative interactions.
In this way, there is certainly some truth that having courageous conversations about sensitive matters has become more difficult as we have struggled to integrate, heal, make meaning of, and re-story our historical and continued collective trauma. Importantly, however, this is not always about conscious antagonistic intent as much as it is an understandable response for a human to have when the context and conditions connect with a traumatic lived experience.
We know that when the parts of our brains that search for unsafety are sensing that we need to be defensive, we do not have access to our best critical thinking, executive functioning, and decision-making skills. Yet, that knowledge can be tremendously difficult to access for anyone when in active conflict (or anticipating that conflict is coming), further diverting diplomatic discourse.
Thinking about how each of us can take steps toward keeping our trauma-informed goggles on by considering “What happened to this person/group/community/system?” rather than “What’s wrong with this person/group/community/system?” while we navigate the world is imperative to reconnect in ways that will shift the course of our collective future toward more compassion and collaboration toward addressing and preventing issues we collectively face.
This shift is needed for us to stop co-dysregulating one another and move toward adopting a more compassionate, more co-regulating presence and having more constructive conversations.
Media Engagement & Declining Mental Health
Just as technology can be harnessed for social good, it also can deepen existing divides and embolden less civil discourse, all of which can cause harm and even elicit real-life violence. The potential for re-traumatization in relation to exposure to commentary, videos, and images both on social media and news media is significant in ways that are troubling given how much of our lives are being spent in connection with media and technology.
While the manner in which American society (among many others) continues to innovate and integrate technology in ways that keep us increasingly tethered to our devices and can adversely impact anyone, it is also important to acknowledge the intersecting factors that make some people particularly susceptible to engaging in patterns of addictive behavior, exacerbating the potential perils of experiencing a decline in mental health in relation to media engagement.
While it makes sense that many continuously seek the surges of dopamine from interacting with social media or relish the release of adrenaline that comes from impassioned arguments online – after all, we are only human – it can be particularly destructive and disconnecting to those who have intersecting experiences of trauma.
For example, consider exposure to ongoing news media covering international conflict and human rights violations happening abroad. Seeing videos of atrocities that cannot be unseen, hearing about the suffering of already-vulnerable and traumatized people and populations, and witnessing the ongoing injustice of “forever wars” in devastating clips that play between ads featuring cheery jingles for weight loss injections and commercials for luxury cruises can feel dystopian and deeply demoralizing for anyone, and especially so for those who have personal histories or familial legacies of similarly traumatic experiences.
This constant barrage of distressing content can heighten our states of arousal and activate trauma responses, leading to a variety of responses based on personal, contextual factors, ranging from withdrawing altogether due to feeling a total sense of futility and hopelessness for the future of our world, to compulsively consuming content in an attempt to process and make sense of the ongoing violence and injustice. This can reinforce a cycle of anxiety, anger, and despair, further isolating individuals from civic engagement and community care.
There is also a pervasive sense of guilt many people feel for setting boundaries around engaging with this media due to the strong opinions expressed in their own social circles about turning away from what is playing out on the world stage, potentially reinforcing narratives that they are “bad.” Forgetting the nuance of the human experience and levying judgments about others’ responses to deeply destabilizing times often reinforces existing trauma narratives. In this case, it might lead to someone exceeding their capacity, exhibiting trauma symptomology, and/or further withdrawing from conversation, connection, and collective action toward change.
As another example, consider the heated, harmful arguments we have seen online in recent times around social, political, and environmental issues connected to public policy. It is important to understand how experiences of trauma can heighten our states of arousal, leading to a more pronounced and practiced “fight” response for self-preservation. It is also important to consider how obsessive behavior like coming back to online arguments for hours or days at a time may represent people trying to feel a sense of power, truth, and control in a chaotic, confusing, and threatening world.
With the shift in social functioning in recent years, isolation, loneliness, and a lack of a sense of belonging are real existential threats many experienced particularly strongly during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to experience in an ever-changing world that has not yet stopped to process and metabolize how very much it has been through.
In both of the examples above, the near-constant exposure to negative feelings, comparison, distressing information, and other potentially activating factors involved with significant media engagement can reinforce a cycle of despair and disengagement from productive civic participation. This keeps us from building collective power to put pressure on policymakers and other leaders to make decisions that will help everyone live healthier, more fulfilling lives.
Online interactions, even contentious ones, can provide feelings of connection and engagement. There is strength in these behaviors – passion and persistence, both of which can be redirected toward more constructive ways to advance change.
Historical Context
The roots of America's collective trauma can be traced back to the earliest days of settler colonialism and supremacy, where the Indigenous inhabitants of the land were violently displaced to establish a societal transformation enshrining the privileged status of the colonizers in law as well as entrenching enduring power dynamics in systems and structures.
This process set a precedent of socially constructed stratification, exploitation, and dehumanization, reinforced especially through the actions of entities that hold and seek to preserve power. The historical continuity of oppression creates cycles of collective trauma and collective disturbance that continue to manifest in our structures and systems today.
Cultural trauma is a type of collective trauma that happens when a community or group experiences an invasive, overwhelming event(s) that undermines or overwhelms elements of its culture, leading to impacts such as cultural and linguistic erasure, oppression, bias, inequity, displacement, disparity, genocide, instability, and other perils. We see such things emerge in connection to experiences/events such as the institution and legacy of slavery, the partial extermination of the Native population in the process of seizing land, the Great Depression and Great Recession, 9/11, and COVID-19.
The sociopolitical landscape plays a significant role in creating and perpetuating cycles of trauma, with modern politics, in particular, often leveraging the paralysis and panic that these cycles elicit. Political leaders, public figures, and corporate entities may – consciously or unconsciously – exploit trauma for power, often exacerbating collective disturbance as well as further compounding and calcifying division.
Modern manifestations of historical harms have left many feeling despondent and disenfranchised. In order to shift our conceptualizations of the future toward one of hope and the possibility for positive change, it is imperative to acknowledge the traumatic roots from which the current context has stemmed.
For example, the economic inequities that continue to intersectionally impact many communities today are connected to our systemic organization around historical and cultural trauma, such as the institutional exclusion of BIPOC folx from wealth-building opportunities that could help break these intergenerational cycles of oppression.
This is just one example of how existing challenges can compound on the current context and conditions that are difficult for nearly everyone, save for the mega-privileged few who have felt safety and stability, or who have even economically thrived, during the last several years of collective instability and struggle. We see similar patterns with environmental and climate-related disparities, physical health outcomes, and a number of other challenges that, when we “zoom out,” clearly connect to cycles of trauma and disturbance.
A just and compassionate society requires that we come together to ensure that everyone has access to the opportunities, resources, and supports that they need to flourish and thrive. Accordingly, it is vital that policies and practices seeking to fairly redress inequities and repair harm prioritize the needs of those who have been most adversely impacted by the shortcomings of policies and practices of the past. This is key to co-creating contexts and conditions where all people are able to feel valued and supported, all of which matter in terms of engaging in meaningful civic participation so together we may turn the tide toward a healthier future for all.
Considerations for Collective Healing
Our collective well-being is intertwined with the histories and lived experiences of the beautifully diverse communities that comprise our country, each bearing unique adaptivity and wounds, as well as wisdom and strengths. To move forward, it is critical we collectively embrace approaches that foster healing, accountability, and genuine reconciliation.
“Never Again:” Restoring Collective Memory Grounded in Truth
To prevent us from replicating the harms of the past, it is vital we understand the effects of individual and collective trauma cycles that continue to reverberate through our society and ripple through the generations. If we do not recognize what is happening and respond accordingly, it will be exceedingly difficult to get out of the “freeze” response so many of us find ourselves in as this familiar-feeling election cycle unfolds.
One important factor to consider is how trauma can profoundly shape elements of individual and collective meaning as well as identity construction. To wit: collective trauma and narratives stemming therefrom influence how the groups we identify with develop and remain connected to a sense of purpose, values, efficacy, and worth.
When trauma happens on a broad scale, communities (whether geographic or of identity) often come together to share their stories and co-create a shared collective narrative reflecting their truth, their struggles, and the resilience found within their responses to adversity. This can be crucial in finding ways to survive and carry forward together.
How broader society’s shared narrative is constructed, however, also reflects existing power dynamics, which means that some voices are given more weight than others. The stories we carry forward ultimately determine the ways we collectively understand and make sense of our past, which inevitably impacts how we carry ourselves in the present and what we strive toward realizing for our futures.
Unfortunately, this means that narratives of people with lived experience of trauma and oppression are often challenged and replaced with pathology, moral failing, questions about self-determination, and judgments from those who stand to benefit from oppressive conditions.
Who controls the narrative shapes critical conversations and creates a sense of “truth” that is passed through generations through mechanisms such as social and familial learning, the way textbooks capture, and schools teach historical happenings, and what policies are enshrined in law.
Collective memory, which can be understood as a shared pool of knowledge, experiences, and narratives that are exchanged and passed down within a community or group in ways that shape its identity and social cohesion, is constructed through cultural practices, storytelling, rituals, traditions, and commemorations.
Collective memory is relational and often shifts over time, re-storying based on ongoing and iterative learning and growth. Similar to with individuals who have experienced trauma, it may take time for a group to co-construct a coherent narrative that notes resilience and strength.
On the other hand, collective amnesia or collective denial can both contribute to the erasure or distortion of collective memory, which can hinder reconciliation and perpetuate cycles of misunderstanding, misalignment, and re-traumatization both within and between communities/groups.
Collective amnesia tends to be used to describe unconscious or unintentional shared forgetting processes (e.g., someone who is younger not recognizing the important past struggles and achievements of the early 20th-century labor movement that established norms such as an eight-hour work day and child labor laws) whereas collective denial implies active rejection, suppression, minimization, distortion, and/or disavowal of another community’s/group’s collective memory (e.g., refusing to recognize and address the systemic nature of racial inequality and disproportionate experiences of police brutality despite overwhelming evidence, statistical data, personal testimonies, and even actual video accounts of clear misconduct).
In the process of collective denial, responsibility for harm is deflected onto “others” while perpetrators escape accountability, leaving the otherized communities/groups to suffer alone as the dominant discourse comes to mirror the story told by those in power, leading many people to abandon support for their fellow humans without hearing the full story. Naturally, this restricts solidarity, building barriers to trust and collaboration that preserve a status quo organized around trauma rather than truth.
The first step in the reconciliation process is truth-telling, calling for us to come together to co-create a new narrative rooted in radical honesty that acknowledges the harms of the past, including those that transpired in the course of the last two election cycles in particular.
It is important, though, to recognize that multiple things can be true at once and that, save for the conscious and insidious efforts of the relative few who pull the strings that dictate the operations of our systems and institutions, the narratives that each of us formulate come to exist for a reason, which typically relates to safety, sense-making, and self-preservation.
Shame is not generative, nor is it the antidote to collective amnesia or collective denial; engaging in conversation to understand how certain beliefs and truths came to be (“What happened?”) is a critical component of shifting the narrative toward one that unites us in action toward change for a healthier world for all.
While some may have done a lot of work on themselves to remain spacious and curious when on the receiving side of strong differing opinions and viewpoints, it is also very human to revert to defensiveness and denial when discussing pain that has happened, especially when our brains also generalize threats to potentially being a commentary on, judgment about, or threat to our family or cultural legacies and our deeply-held values.
Our worldviews keep us safe as we navigate time and space, and we may be afraid of what happens, what it means for us, and what it says about us when our ways of knowing, thinking, being, doing, and relating are challenged.
It is vital we understand this as a protective response as well. Members of perpetrator groups often experience selective memory about events not due to malice but to avoid inner conflict and moral injury. This is particularly significant among those who highly identify with a group being publicly held accountable or condemned.
Defensive representations in our individual lives do not necessarily happen because we are cruel, uncaring people but because our sense of self is threatened by something we have encountered, and we are seeking safety and survival.
Make no mistake – this is not about being apologists or excusing harmful behavior; quite the opposite! It is vital we reconnect a sense of humanity to what is happening if those who have perpetrated harm will ever be able to tap into their capacity to be accountable and act in solidarity toward a less divided future.
Whether any particular event is perceived as morally “right” or “wrong” by individuals or a collective, the fact of the matter is that defensive representations can and often do serve to help restore a positive sense of identity, self-concept, and belief that a person/community/group is virtuous and “good.” Just as in cases of interpersonal trauma at more individual levels, to deny that something happened and reverse the harmed party and offender can fortify the perpetrator group’s feelings of moral standing.
We protect our ingroups (and thus preserve our sense of individual and collective selves) through behaviors like minimizing historical crimes, employing toxically positive “silver lining” spins to atrocities while avoiding the harder parts of the story, being influenced by institutionalized forgetting, and other behaviors that shape collective memory and formulate multi-generation spanning ideologies that can become conflated as hard, objective, universal facts about situations that are nuanced, complex, and hold multiple truths.
It also stands to reason that we may fear the consequences of acknowledging the full scope of harms we have committed when we realize, upon retroactive reflection, that we were in survival mode and did not act in alignment with how we would conduct ourselves with the benefit of hindsight and a more regulated self.
There are many “undiscussables” that are often shrouded in shame and thus tough to acknowledge complicity in, ranging from holding bias to snapping at or saying pointedly cruel things to our cared-for ones during times of conflict, to engaging in livelihood- or reputation-threatening misconduct, to violating or creating barriers to others realizing the dignity and rights they are afforded simply by virtue of being human, along with a wide range of other topics and themes that many of us actively avoid discussing or addressing in the interest of self-defense.
While the intent to do harm may not be at the forefront of the minds of the vast majority of cases, it cannot be overstated that the impacts of collective denial and amnesia still matter and still compound our trauma responses as we all grow more suspicious, fearful, and distrusting of one another.
That is why what needs to happen for solidarity and healing to emerge does not stop at “just” stepping back to understand what has happened. Once we have realized the insidious nature of collective trauma and recognized behaviors we notice as trauma responses, there must be accountability, followed by active reparation.
Certainly, formal institutions like truth and reconciliation commissions about all that has transpired in the last several years are important to get a sense of what happened, to establish accountability, and to move toward national reconciliation, which has the power to shape collective memory that future generations can heed to ensure that they prevent similar harms from happening in their own lifetimes.
Having said that, if perpetrators of harm who are in positions of significant power (like the President of the United States) exhibit collective denial and there is no space for other truths to be considered and corroborated within or by these institutions, the possibility of establishing a collective memory for national reconciliation and prevention of future harm becomes less likely.
Navigating power dynamics when seeking radical honesty can be challenging, especially at this stage where trauma has proliferated without being acknowledged, integrated, and healed for generations. Even though so many of us have been harmed, trauma, by nature, is deeply disconnecting, and the isolation, secrecy, and shame that connect to experiences of trauma keep existing power dynamics alive.
Acknowledging and preserving all experiences of and responses to trauma in our collective memory has the power to validate the multidimensionality of our human experiences to a significant moment in our history and fosters a sense of belonging, truth, empowerment, and solidarity. In these narratives, it is important we highlight the strength and agency of individuals and communities in the face of oppression and trauma.
Reconnecting with our shared humanity and honoring the validity of all lived experiences as we co-create a coherent narrative of all we have been through is critical to change the ending to our story. Understanding our evolutionary drive to seek safety is important because it helps us engage with more compassion, creating space for the complex narrative that accurately captures the essence of the present moment.
This is what is truly necessary to ensure that overwhelming, unresolved feelings related to unprocessed trauma and identity crises do not influence voters to act against the best interest not just of themselves but of the collective and our shared future.
Saying “never again” without confronting the reality of what contributed to this period of pain will not preserve a just, resilient, connected, compassionate, and healthy future for the United States of America. Difficult conversations can feel impossible, as can confronting uncomfortable truths around how we have contributed to or been complicit in harm, yet silence and neutrality in times of great threat like we find ourselves in right now have high costs.
While it is understandable that we may not each feel as if we have the capacity to engage in action or that doing so is futile, it is important to notice where there are ways to preserve our individual well-being while contributing to changing the course of history for the better. Every conversation anchored in compassion and curiosity has the potential to ripple outward to support a more constructive conversation around what we collectively hope for in the future and how we can work together to get there.
Informal advocacy activities like having critical conversations with those near and dear to our hearts, writing or creating art representing our experiences and perspectives, leveraging our positionality to uplift voices of those who have been excluded from our construction of collective memory, speaking truth to power when we witness wrongdoing, and other actions outside of direct advocacy to our representatives all contribute to the broader processes of renegotiating history and identity, repairing relationships, and fostering shared understandings that can help us move forward more functionally and productively as a national community.
Restorative Practices and Transformative Justice
In the face of persistent, ongoing cycles of traumatogenic forces that pose harm to our collective identity and well-being, drawing from the principles of restorative and transformative justice offers a path forward that prioritizes healing, accountability, and genuine reconciliation. These approaches are useful anchors because they shift the focus from punishment, isolation, and shame to understanding, connectedness, and restoration.
Restorative practices and transformative justice share a mission to not only address specific events and behaviors that represent the signs and symptoms of collective trauma and disturbance but also seek to address their root causes. It is clear that failing to look through a trauma-informed lens when we view the events of our full history as a nation has hindered our collective progress, and now is the time to take a closer look at what has really happened in order to inform our next steps.
Especially in times that lack institutional accountability and where trust in those who hold power is low, taking matters into our own hands by tapping into community capacity can be a powerful catalyst for the kind of compassion and connection that can bridge divides and increase collective power to effect meaningful, substantial systemic and structural change.
More specifically, restorative practices describe a wide range of approaches to repair harm, restore relationships, and build community. These practices often include community circles/peace-making circles but also extend to restorative conferencing, peer mediation programs, community cohesion/community values circles, survivor-offender dialogues, and many other possible practices that align with the spirit and intent of restorative justice.
These practices often include community circles/peace-making circles but also extend to restorative conferencing, peer mediation programs, community cohesion/community values circles, survivor-offender dialogues, and many other possible practices that align with the spirit and intent of restorative justice.
A common factor across different types of restorative practices is facilitating conversations where all affected parties can speak their truths and find a path to resolution. Restorative practices emphasize understanding and addressing the needs of the survivors while promoting accountability and growth for those who caused harm. This process fosters empathy, healing, and community cohesion, creating an environment where all parties feel heard and valued and supporting the co-creation of cohesive narratives that do not deny anyone’s realities, making the partnership that true change requires.
Transformative justice goes a step further by not only facilitating reparation of the harm but also seeking to transform the social conditions that led to the harm happening in the first place. This challenge to traditional punitive approaches to justice, which often perpetuate harm and fail to address underlying issues, entails addressing the root causes of the trauma of injustice, such as systemic oppression, inequality, and discrimination, and ensuring systems and institutions in place promote healing and accountability. With this focus, transformative justice creates opportunities for resilience-building and meaningful change to prevent harm.
Connecting past history to present reality with consideration for community/group values and context plays a crucial role in this process. If we are to move forward together to disrupt the intergenerational cycles of trauma and recurring threats to our collective well-being that are on the horizon, we must replace the untruthful notes of manipulation, malaise, and misogyny that characterize our current conversations with competence, compassion, and care. Restorative practices and transformative justice provide guidelines to address and redress the ripple effects of what has happened to us, fostering a healthier and more just world for all.
Realizing this vision demands commitment from and collaboration among community members, organizations, and institutions in order to build the capacity to address harm in alignment with the principles of restorative practices and transformative justice. It is vital that groups and communities develop structures and protocols that support these approaches. This includes training facilitators, creating spaces for courageous conversations through the co-construction of community agreements for engagement, and establishing clear guidelines for accountability.
These practices can be used in times of conflict as well as to sustain times of peace and connectedness. Holistic approaches like restorative practices and transformative justice not only help individuals and communities heal but also build resilience and foster a sense of shared responsibility for creating a better future. Facilitating constructive community conversations across diversity, difference, and division, enabling communities/groups to tap into their collective wisdom to reorient around shared vision and goals, is key to people coming together to visualize and build solutions grounded in strength and solidarity.
Engaging in Mutual Aid and Community Care
In a time where none of us have been left unchanged by the events of the last several years, disparities in access to safe, supportive environments for healing remain evident. While some have the privilege to access services and supports that fit for them, many others – particularly those who have lived experiences of intersecting traumas – have needs that are not aligned with that for which our systems and institutions provide funding, eligibility criteria, and implementation guidelines.
While we must continue to demand change that will ensure everyone has access to what they need to flourish and thrive, the current climate and context confirm that there is an urgent need for us to build our own supportive networks that suit our needs in the meantime. While we must retain hope, we also must recognize the reality that our formal institutions have not adequately cared for or protected many communities and groups and that it is not a priority for policymakers to shift this paradigm on a broad scale in the present moment.
Like trauma-informed practices, mutual aid seeks to disrupt the status quo, challenging the individualism and competition that has come to characterize our modern mainstream society. Mutual aid takes us back to our roots as humans – a collectivist species by nature – to foster a sense of interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of our communities and for one another.
Mutual aid networks have long provided a model of community care rooted in solidarity and reciprocity, particularly for people who have been pushed to the margins of society, particularly BIPOC and LGBTQIA2S+ folx, people living in poverty, and immigrant populations. We also saw a significant upsurge in mutual aid practices during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. These networks provide essential resources to meet a wide range of emerging and evolving community needs, from food to skill-sharing, to healthcare support to financial assistance, and much more.
One of the most challenging aspects of trauma recovery for many is how difficult asking for assistance can be – especially for those who have been denied access to support in the past. By learning to request support and encouraging others to do the same, stigmas and dehumanizing labels like being “a burden” can be broken down. Neutralizing shame can unlock new narratives that restore trust in and connection with oneself, others, and the broader world.
Mainstream self-care rhetoric often assigns blame and alienates communities who lack access to resources to flourish and thrive due to being made vulnerable by our systems and institutions – not their moral character, “bad choices,” or the pathologized labels placed on them by those very same systems and structures. Mutual aid counters these narratives, valuing the power of collective care and recognizing that no one truly exists in total isolation from the rest of humanity.
In mutual aid networks, support is built such that everyone has the opportunity and choice to contribute in alignment with their capacity, with judgment-free recognition that some may need more robust supports than others. The liberation in shedding shame associated with asking for help itself can be deeply empowering, instilling a spirit of reciprocity and motivating sustained support for others when those who have received support in the past are able to contribute.
It is important to recognize that every contribution matters and that everyone has unique gifts and wisdom to contribute to community-building. Some may march and rally, others may engage in online discourse or field requests for assistance, some can offer emotional or physical support based on their own expertise, and so forth. Recognizing and valuing these diverse contributions is essential for a robust mutual aid network to support thriving among its community members.
One common barrier to implementing mutual aid and similar practices is the fear that community care might replace government care, or that mutual aid will deplete energy for political activism. It is vital to realize that mutual aid is not a replacement but instead stands as a necessary and useful supplement, especially in times of institutional failure to meet needs as we find ourselves in now.
To this point, mutual aid has the power to comprise a crucial way to support daily life and sustain the spirit of systemic change. Integrating mutual aid into existing systems and structures ensures that communities have the resources they need to thrive while also modeling the support desired within communities to inform advocacy efforts for broader change.
It is true that organizing does require energy and community support, yet this, in turn, cultivates the collective capacity and courage to demand more from the system so that we do not need to work so, so hard in the future to simply have our most basic needs for mere survival met. Importantly, operating on a mindset of abundance rather than of scarcity, mutual aid creates the context and conditions for communities to stand empowered to support each other through challenge – regardless of political processes and election outcomes.
Cultivating a culture of community care tends to grow organically, starting with close relationships and expanding outward, ideally building a network of sustained local support that continuously operates and has the capacity to respond robustly in times of crisis. While not everything that happens within our lives can operate in the spirit of generosity as we need to ensure we are attending to our own holistic well-being before we can truly be effective space-holders and helpers to others, we each have a reserve of capacity that we may tap into in support of building community cohesion and resilience.
By strengthening cultural identity and building autonomous, self-determining communities, conditions and contexts for resilience, healing, and post-traumatic growth are established and sustained. Grounding our steps toward our future in common humanity, radical compassion, and collective care unlocks the possibility for communities to commit to and show up for mutual support – not just based on what is urgently needed today, but also for realizing common values, goals, and needs of our shared tomorrows.
Concluding Call to Action
The path to collective healing and justice is an ongoing journey of reflection and action that demands active, sustained participation of individuals, communities, and groups nationwide. It has never been more urgent to come together to prevent what we know will traumatize and re-traumatize swaths of our population while benefiting the privileged few. We have the power to co-create a future where everyone may flourish and thrive – but this only happens with unified action to turn the course of history toward compassion, dignity, and well-being for all.
Part of disrupting cycles of collective trauma and disturbance is meeting our fellow humans where they truly are, as opposed to where we wish they were, or where we believe they ought to be. It is vital we recognize and respond to the unresolved trauma in our nation’s fabric through embodying radical honesty and radical compassion.
We all carry a deep, unimaginable grief that shapes how we connect with one another.
This cumulative emotional and spiritual wound, stemming from our storied shared history, affects us all in some way or another. If left unattended to and ignored, our collective wounds will continue to create barriers to truly seeing, meeting, and connecting with each other in ways that will lead to further deterioration of our society and senses of self in the future.
CTIPP recognizes that the ask to stand together and take robust action is not an easy one at a time when there is so much fatigue, fear, and futility felt. Yet, it is a critical ask.
Ignoring the impacts explored above, among the many other trauma responses that continue to arise in our fractured and fragmented society, will undoubtedly fail to address that which contributes to disproportionate pain and suffering experienced by our cared-for ones and community members.
What has happened to us is unacceptable, and while suffering is an inevitable part of life and some elements of suffering are out of our locus of individual or collective control, it is imperative that we work together to keep one another safe from suffering that is avoidable, reducible, and preventable through approaches explored in this piece.
The work of advancing trauma-responsive, prevention-oriented, resilience-building, healing-centered, community-led policies and practices recognizes that our liberation is inextricably intertwined. By working together, we will address the root causes of our collective trauma and support a society that prioritizes everyone's well-being.
We know what works to help heal wounds of the past as well as create pathways toward hope, healing, and health for all. We have the tools to move forward together, and we have the potential to be the generation that disrupts these cycles and catalyzes the deep healing processes necessary for collective post-traumatic growth. Join us!
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