Ccontent warning for descriptions of violence
by David Avruch
The area around Boston, where I was raised, is home to several well-established communities of former refugees. Many Armenian, Vietnamese, Somali and Iraqi people as well as many Ashkenazi Jews call Massachusetts home. Prominent among these groups are the Cambodians who fled from the genocide which killed about a quarter of their country's population, nearly 2 million people, in the late 1970's. Unfortunately, the regime that perpetrated the genocide, the Khmer Rouge, deployed extreme sadism in their quest to purge Cambodian society of unwanted groups.
A psychiatrist named Richard Mollica wrote a memoir called Healing Invisible Wounds about the years he spent providing psychosocial care and support to survivors of the Cambodian Genocide who resettled around Boston. His Cambodian clients taught him new ways of understanding and treating trauma when it occurs collectively. According to Mollica, the key elements of healing include: trusting relationships where the story of the trauma can be told; artistic self-expression, whether related to the experience of trauma or otherwise; connection to an ongoing practice of spirituality, religious or otherwise; and access to participation in altruistic acts.
The idea of altruism as treatment for trauma has always fascinated me - as a Jewish person and as a therapist. I fully believe that fighting against oppression (e.g., racism, sexism, economic inequality) is integral to healing the wounds inflicted by these systems. When we right a social wrong that harmed us, we prevent that trauma from happening to another in the community. Alternatively, altruism can take place on the interpersonal level, through acts of service, kindness and care.
But what do we do when the trauma is ongoing? When we're trapped in a botched pandemic response? When tens of millions of people who don't believe in science have the power to prolong our suffering? When the risk of violent political conflict feels real? My answer is, we survive - and do what we can. "It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work," it is written in Pirkei Avot, "but neither are you at liberty to desist from it." Being there and witnessing one another's stories, creating beauty, accessing spirituality, fighting for change, providing care - these acts probably won't end this nightmare. But research has proven that the experience of powerlessness can amplify the suffering imposed by trauma. My take is, knowing that you did what was within your power to do - being able to look in the mirror before bed and know that you tried - is sometimes all there is to reach for. That, and one another.