Matthew Green, Journalist, and Author of Aftershock: Fighting War, Surviving Trauma, and Finding Peace, and host of the Collective Trauma Summit 2022, wrote an article: “What the Climate Movement Can Learn From Collective Trauma Healing – Practices for helping large groups of people integrate traumatic histories could inform more effective action.”
It is published on Desmog, an internet platform engaged in science and climate change.
Matthew chose the work of Thomas Hübl as a reference for trauma integration work. Here are some excerpts:
“Psychologists have long noted that trauma can be passed down a family line, as parents inadvertently recreate the abusive or neglectful atmospheres in which they themselves were raised. But an equivalent mechanism seems to affect entire generations, Hübl writes in his 2020 book, Healing Collective Trauma, driving repetitive cycles of violence, prejudice, and dysfunction. Whether our ancestors were victims or perpetrators, or a mixture of both, the past shapes our perceptions of what should pass for ‘normal’ behavior in insidious ways, coloring the environment into which we’re born.”
“How can we come to recognize the dark as part of ourselves so we may integrate its lessons and through them be transformed? Hübl writes in Healing Collective Trauma. ‘And how would such healing, on a collective scale, advance the care of the planet that is our home?'”
“In my experience, the kind of collective trauma healing resources and competencies that Hübl and other practitioners teach are precisely the skills we need to build communities, teams, and social movements capable of driving the rapid transformation demanded by the climate crisis.”
“Even simple practices can help build more collaborative cultures. For example, teams might start meetings with brief personal check-ins, and then integrate more advanced, multi-day processes, all of which can help build trust, improve morale, and align members with a clear mission. When groups build greater coherence in this way, a mysterious X-factor — Hübl calls it ‘collective intelligence’ — kicks in and transformation can often unfold in delightfully surprising ways.”
Read the full article here >>
Thank you Matthew Green!
