From Complex Trauma to Collective Trauma: Restoring the Healing Cycle

The events that result in a diagnosis of complex trauma may include prenatal injuries as well as childhood adversity. Whatever the nature of the events or the impact of distressing relationships, the autonomic nervous system reacts with alarm and then defenses. When in a state of alarm and defense, cells throughout the body alter their purpose of maintaining health and change their inner course toward defense.  If safety is reestablished within moments and relationships repaired, the healing cycle of the cells are naturally restored and resilience develops in the person’s body and mind.

Without relational safety and connection for an immediate repair, the cells continue their course of defense resulting in chronic mental and physical illnesses. Robert Naviaux calls this reaction the chronic defense response in an article on the metabolic regulation of the healing cycle (Naviaux, 2018).  Naviaux identifies the changes that occur to the endocrine systems such as the thyroid and adrenal cortical throughout the body and the power of vagal nervous system to restore the endocrine systems.  Stephen Porges, an innovative neuroscientist, continues to offer possibilities for healing through activation of the vagal nervous system, often known as the parasympathetic system.  From Allan Schore, a prolific research neuropsychologist, we have learned that relational connection with awareness of our inner selves and with others is the short path to a healing cycle.

What does this have to do with healing trauma for the individual as well as a culture?  As psychotherapists have observed, people with complex trauma often have other chronic illnesses that stem from dysregulation of the metabolic endocrine systems that affect the function of cells.  In order to stimulate the healing cycle, we have learned to regulate the autonomic nervous system so that the vagal nervous system is not compromised and frozen by unnecessary activation of the sympathetic nervous system.  But is that enough?  What is necessary to restore the healing cycle so that resilience grows and the optimal window of arousal expands to tolerate increased stress and adversity? 

Antonio Damasio, an inspiring neuroscientist and writer, points out that the cellular health of the body is reflected in the health of the culture. In his book, The Strange Order of Things, Damasio describes the sequence of a healing cycle through the right hemisphere of the brain, moving from cells to feelings and images that create new meaning.  If just a few individuals suffer from complex trauma or a chronic defense response, the culture is able to respond with knowledge, compassion and empathy to restore the healing cycle in those people.  However, when a chronic defensive response expands throughout a culture through misinformation, poverty, food shortages, injustice toward particular individuals due to gender, sexual orientation, color of skin, religion and other issues of diversity, the culture is no longer able to maintain mental and physical health. We call this collective trauma.

That does not need to be the end of the story or the breakdown of a nation.  The higher cortical processes of humans differ from other animals in their ability to be conscious and aware. In a culture with increased stress and adversity, it is essential that each individual become aware of their ability to restore health and wellness through a surrender to the healing cycle in a relational context.  A time of crisis requires a change in lifestyle to optimal health through nurturing food, optimal activity, restful sleep and relational connectivity so that we can care for the more wounded and the young with authentic empathy and compassion. A change in lifestyle at a time of crisis, requires a personal and collective rebirth of courage, meaning and purpose rather than a submission to overwhelming fear and the deepening of a chronic defense response.

The renewal of courage, meaning and purpose begins in the renewal of a healing cycle to our very cells.   How can we rise up to our ability to extend wisdom, empathy and compassion to the people  who are suffering when we have become exhausted, stuck in a chronic defensive pattern and our very cells are resistant to an innate course of healing?  We need to stay in contact with intimate relationships, know our  bodily-based feelings, nurture our creative images and reflect on the meaning of our lived experience.

Perhaps we can learn from the indigenous people of our land. Richard Atleo, a UBC scholar of NuuChahNulth people of Vancouver Island describes the season of winter as a deeply restful and restorative time. His people took time remember their identify through storytelling and creatively recalling the teachings of their ancestors. 

Each of us does have a mission, a purpose and meaning for this time.  We are each needed.

What if we took this winter to deeply rest, restore our very metabolic health, live simply, eat wisely, love passionately and forgive ourselves and others for all the hurt we have caused.  What if this dark winter could become a time a deep reflection and re-membering?

Those of us with a past of  immigrant ancestors who came to this land with their hopes, vision and courage could take time to reflect on our own lived experience, our legacy from our past and who we are becoming for the future.  Perhaps we could reflect on the suffering of those with ancestors who did not chose to come here but were forced into slavery from which we have profited.  We could remember the indigenous peoples whose land we appropriated and continue to occupy without even an apology.  What if we each came to a larger, more expansive perspective of who we were, are and can become to create new ways to live together in the healing cycle of our culture.