Trauma & Art

Some insights on trauma and collective trauma from the Collective Trauma Summit-2019

One of the first things I had written to post on this site when I was putting it together was about how individual innate trauma responses like denial and dissociation, projection and transmission, and so on, also operate at a cultural and collective level, and that all our experience is embedded in bigger contexts, all the way up to the cosmos.  Our individual and inter- generational traumas are embedded in and informed by larger cultural and collective traumas. We are all situated in social containers where collective traumas dynamics are being played out constantly and which inform our circumstances and thinking. Thomas Hubl talks about a collective trauma web we are all entangled in. We cannot escape this because there is probably no place or country on this planet where, across generations, there has not been massive scale trauma experiences like wars, famine, dire poverty, dislocation and exile, occupation of territories and genocide, dictatorships, oppression and marginalisation of groups, slavery, racism and sexism, to mention but a few. If we add natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis and the massive environmental destruction and climate trauma we humans have been inflicting upon Mother Earth, which is now an ongoing, accelerated experience, then it is easy to understand how trauma is relevant to all of us.

Some valuable insights I gleaned from the talks of this summit from diverse fields are:

Lack of resolution of trauma and loss emerges in children and others, even with the best of intentions. When leaders of countries carry unresolved traumas the consequences can be dire and can create massive suffering and wounding on communities and the planet

Trauma separates and separation in itself causes trauma and disempowerment

Trauma fragments, disconnects, disembodies, creates absence and blindness on the nature of reality

Trauma is an assault on integration, wholeness and presence, which is what health and resilience are made of

We have become blind and often desensitized to trauma because it is ubiquitous and because there is barrier of ignorance we need to break through

Trauma does not dissipate on its own. It is cumulative and is passed on until it is acknowledged, discussed, embraced and resolved

Trauma impacts the development of brain areas and affects epigenetic regulators, which may result in the transmission of trauma responses and behaviours for many generations to come, according to research on mice and observations and qualitative research in holocaust survivor families, and other communities with cultural and collective trauma

Unresolved trauma depletes our physiology and impacts our capacity for secure attachment

Another hallmark of trauma is lack of self-acceptance and self-compassion

Trauma teaches children to shut down their body and it stifles their growth and potential

Trauma narrows our consciousness and has a disembodying effect. Maybe that is why we are so disembodied from nature and blind to the fact that we are part of a living organism. We are not mechanical objects or creatures separate and independent from nature and each other

The importance of somatic approaches, movement, contemplation and mindful stillness to return to embodiment and presence

Trauma tears down our spiritual world, which starts to come alive once we start healing and tapping into a more expansive sense of Self

More in the next post…….

Maps and mourning sites…..

I have been meaning to write about maps… for some time, but never got around to it; however, currently reading Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ book brought it to the foreground again. So, in this brief post I will be making references to an intervention she has developed. She calls it Descansos. Descansos are to be found in various places like Mexico, on the edges of cliffs along scenic but dangerous roads in Italy, Greece and other Mediterranean countries and maybe other places, too. In Greece they are called Eικονοστάσια (icon + resting places). Some are elaborate and some are minimal, but they all mark a tragic loss. They are symbols that mark a death right on the spot where someone’s life journey was unexpectedly ended.

They may be simple crosses with people’s names inscribed on them by the roadway. She writes ‘in the rockiest passes, the cross is just painted onto a large rock at the roadside.’ In Greece they often resemble miniature churches made of various material on stilts. A religious icon, the person’s photograph and name, a message from loved ones, a plant or a vase with flowers are usually placed in these little containers. When loved ones live close by a small light is kept burning.

Dr Estes writes ‘women have died a thousand deaths before they are twenty years old. They’ve gone in this direction or that, and have been cut off. They have hopes and dreams that have been cut off also. Anyone who says otherwise is still asleep….. all that is grist for the mill of descansos.’ What has been lost, taken or abruptly ended needs to be acknowledged and mourned so that individuation and an awakening of sorts may take place. Making descansos as a healing practice involves taking a look at one’s life by making a time-line of a woman’s life on a big long sheet of white butcher paper, and marking with a cross where the small and big deaths have taken place and need to be articulated and mourned ….. ‘starting with her infancy all the way to the present where parts and pieces of herself and her life have died. We mark where there were roads not taken, paths that were cut off, ambushes, betrayals’ (C,P.Estes). I often think the crosses on these maps coincide with the instructions and road maps  handed to us on a certain developmental chair, a woman’s early wounding and conditioning to be a certain way, cultural, relational, educational and health related violations and experiences, all the way up to menopause, even later, depending on when the reckoning will finally take place.

The work involves discerning what has been mourned, what has not and what has been forgotten and not surfaced yet, as well as, what has been forgiven and released. As I understand, this work can become the basis for constructing a coherent life narrative within a larger and more dynamic background. According to Dr Estes, Descansos is a conscious practice that feels compassion for and honors the orphaned parts of our psyche, and the aspects of self that were on their way to somewhere, but never arrived. Descansos requires compassion and gentleness and fosters new meaning making. The process allows one to slowly put down the burdens and lay matters to rest. As with many interventions the presence of an informed and compassionate witness or guide facilitates the grieving process and the healing.