Why community is essential to trauma healing and recovery.

In my years of clinical practice I’ve noticed how individualistic trauma often therapy is. So many quick fixes are offered nowadays that claim to erase or integrate individual experiences of trauma without deep and meaningful interactions.

When we only focus solely on the individual and their unique story of trauma, we lose sight of an essential aspect of trauma healing and recovery - it ultimately happens in relationship.

Trauma creates an overwhelming sense of unsafety and disconnection for those who survive traumatic events. Trauma creates a sense of separation and fragmentation - it cuts us off from our emotions, our sense of safety, and our feeling of belonging within the world. Trauma and its aftermath is intrinsically isolating.

Trauma healing and recovery happens through experiences that help to mend our sense of unsafety - bringing us back into relationship with our emotions - and helping us to integrate a meaningful sense of belonging within the broader order of our human existence.

Trauma healing requires us to heal the relationship we have with ourselves - and the relationships that we have with others - helping us to rediscover a sense of safety in being a part of something bigger than our individual selves.

Trauma therapy needs to nurture our connection to all our relationships - including our community and the natural world. It needs to connect the individual stories of trauma with the stories of others - others who have survived - others who are ready to embrace us in their understanding and remind us that we all belong - none of us are alone.

Collective stories of trauma also help us to recognize where patterns of trauma persist within our community - allowing us to make changes that stop trauma from repeating within the intergenerational systems of families and communities.