Book Recommendation on Trauma Coping - Collective Narrative Practice: Responding to individuals, groups, and communities who have experienced trauma

Last week, I completed reading Collective Narrative Practice: Responding to individuals, groups, and communities who have experienced trauma, the book by David Denborough. The book is not lengthy as I only spent less than three nights reading from start to finish while taking notes, yet it covers countless progressive insights, which would be greatly beneficial for us both members and listeners who would like to increase knowledge base and apply methodology related with trauma.

Here is an overview of this book quoted from Goodreads:

This book introduces a range of hopeful methodologies to respond to individuals, groups and communities who are experiencing hardship. These approaches are deliberately easy to engage with and can be used with children, young people and adults.

The methodologies described include: Collective narrative documents, Enabling contributions through exchanging messages and convening definitional ceremonies, The Tree of Life: responding to vulnerable children, The Team of Life: giving young people a sporting chance, Checklists of social and psychological resistance, Collective narrative timelines, Maps of history, and Songs of sustenance. To illustrate these approaches, stories are shared from Australia, Southern Africa, Israel, Ireland, USA, Palestine, Rwanda and elsewhere.

This book also breaks new ground in considering how responding to trauma also involves responding to social issues. How can our work contribute not only to 'healing' but also to 'social movement'? As we work with the stories of people's lives can we contribute to the remaking of folk culture? And is it possible to move beyond the dichotomy of individualism/collectivism? Collective narrative practices are now being engaged with in many different parts of the world. This book invites the reader to engage with these approaches in their own ways.

(See more at: www.goodreads.com/work/editions/15188029-collective-narrative-practice-responding-to-individuals-groups-and-co)

Here are some of the most impressive insights I have gained from this book:

1. Traumatic experiences cannot and should not be totally forgotten; rather, they should be delivered again in empowering narratives.

Realized or not, every one of us lives according to our life narratives, which contain all of our cherished values, ups and downs, love and fear; without any piece of our experiences, we are not who we are. Forcing individuals to forget about their traumatic experiences, without sufficient recognition and reflection, may cause them to feel torn apart, getting incredibly harder in self-acceptance.

And a lot of times, disempowering narrative itself can be one of the major parts of traumatic experiences, and also one of their major triggers. With disempowering narratives – ranging from I am so foolish being used to I cannot change anything – echoing in our heads, we may very possibly feel intimidated, or even humiliated, again and again. While with empowering narratives, without distorting the uneasy facts, we can head for a shiny path of mutual support, connection and meaningful change.

2. Traumatic experiences cannot and should not be seen as only psychological and individualistic; rather, they should be seen as a bridge linking individuals with historical and collective narratives, linking psychological methodologies with greater social concerns and movements.

The linking may start from a simple idea: we can share the coping skills we have gained in trauma with more people alike. It may grow stronger as we, through the sharing, feel the feeling again that we are able to contribute, and we actively belong with a meaningful connection broader than us.

The book covers many detailed methods on creating and maintaining this linking, among which the artistic approach can help a lot in the linkings visualization. In many local neighborhoods, volunteers and nonprofit organizations are already applying similar activities, like collective lyric composing and grassroot theater, with migrant workers coping with the trauma of domestic violence. Through these activities, the migrant workers can not only cope better with the trauma of themselves, but also gain a meaningful community of fellow migrant workers, which may nourish future action and positive changes. And indeed, it is the linking that fundamentally makes the empowering narratives empowering.

Wholeheartedly I recommend this book to all of you! You can always feel free to reply or message me when you would like to share your insights, and for members to set a time with me for further support.

Habis Gelap Terbitlah Terang (After Darkness, Light Is Born) -- Raden Adjeng Kartini