Shared Trauma

What impact has the pandemic had on us as individuals and on our relationships?

How have we endured the difficulties of the past year?

What do we need to help us recover and rebuild?

As some of our lockdown restrictions are easing, there is much being written about the events of the last year and how we process the trauma it has inevitably represented for many people.

Ed Prideaux, in an article for BBC Future, discusses the effects of what he terms ‘Mass trauma’ and the importance of beginning to process it for all of us as individuals, couples, families, communities, society.

Each one of us has a different response to trauma in our lives

Some see it as a chance to develop resilience, to discover their ‘best self’. Others find that it impacts them enormously, overwhelming them, shaping their identity and dominating their sense of who they are.

Trauma can remind us of previous experiences we have had - even our bodies can hold memories that we may be unaware of.

Trauma affects not just an individual but also the people around them

As a systemic psychotherapist, working largely with couples and families, I see that trauma can be collective. It can also be passed down the generations in terms of a narrative that affects the next generation, becoming a stuck pattern.

So what can we do to help ourselves process or heal this recent trauma?

Gerrilyn Smith, a Systemic Psychotherapist, in her book ‘Working with trauma’, urges us to name and speak about the trauma we have experienced to help us process it.

Not talking about it, she says, can become a family or a couple’s collective story, intended to be protective but potentially making the distress greater.

How do we manage our different approaches to trauma within our families and our relationships?

Perhaps this presents us with an opportunity to open a conversation with those around us about how the pandemic has affected us and to listen to and validate each other’s experiences of it.

Our stories will be varied, affected by our circumstances, our context and the beliefs and meanings that have been passed down through generations.

Sharing our stories with each other can be the start of a helpful recovery

Stories can help us find a coherent way to express what we have experienced and to learn from the perspectives of others. They can be an opportunity for us to promote resilience, focusing on the ways that we have managed the difficulties of the pandemic.

Whatever our own circumstances have been, it is important for us to help each other to notice the times when we have struggled but have found a way through, however wobbly it has felt.

Recovery from trauma needs to be addressed on a community level

The pandemic has emphasised the inequalities of the world we live in and has shed light on our hugely varied experiences of the past year. We have been forced to close our doors and to shield ourselves from friends, neighbours and other groups which has had a devastating effect on vulnerable individuals and families.

It is our challenge now to share our stories and create a new normal, as we emerge slowly and safely from our homes to reconnect with each other.

The acknowledgment of what we have all been through creates a shared reality, allowing us to recognise its trauma but also to focus on the stories of resilience that will become so important to carry us through to the next stage.