This document provides an overview of trauma healing strategies. It defines trauma and discusses how unhealed trauma can continue cycles of violence. The S.T.A.R. model is introduced as a way to build trauma awareness and resilience. Common responses to trauma like anger, depression, and anxiety are explained. The document then outlines a three phase process for breaking trauma cycles: safety, acknowledgement, and reconnection. Specific strategies are presented for each phase, like finding safety, mourning losses, understanding other perspectives, forgiveness, restorative justice, and reconciliation.

1. Little Book of Trauma Healing:
When Violence Striked and
Community Security Is Threatened
Autumn Flickinger
Tia Williams

2. Introduction
“The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past.” - William Faulkner
● Trauma, a call to change and transformation
● Defining Trauma: The Causes and Types
● Common Responses to Trauma
● Continuing the Cycles: Unhealed Trauma

3. Trauma, A Call to Change and Transformation
Trauma: An extremely disturbing/distressing experience.
○ It is generalized that trauma healing is warm and fuzzy, little to do with societal politics or
violence.
○ Trauma is directly linked to negative physiological, psychological, cognitive, behavioral, and
spiritual reactions that impact individuals and groups for long periods of time or
permanently.
○ There are no specific answers to to reparations for trauma, but trauma must be
acknowledged to find the causes behind its triggers, which sparks healing and spiritual
awakening.

4. S.T.A.R.
● Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience, or S.T.A.R., is an
organization made up of leaders in conflict areas from over 62 countries
around the world.
● This organization does experiential and academic seminars to help people
with trauma, preventing tit-for-tat violence, and self-victim perception.
● It is based on traumatology, human security, restorative justice, conflict
transformation, peacebuilding, and faith/spirituality.
● Originally for responses to acts of terrorism, but now adapted to fit natural
disaster trauma and other traumatic events.

5. Defining Trauma: The Causes and Types
● Trauma looks different in different scenarios.
○ Can be defined differently based on an individual’s feelings (stressors and/or traumatic
events).
● Though different, both stress and trauma have the ability to impair
individuals.
● Traumatic events:
○ Involves threats to lives or bodies.
○ Produce terror or feeling of helplessness.
○ Overwhelm an individual’s/group’s ability to cope/respond to the threat.
○ Lead to sense of loss of control.
○ Challenge a person’s/group’s sense that life is meaningful and orderly.

6. Defining Trauma: The Causes and Types
● What is stressful for one group may be traumatic for another.
● Factors that may contribute to this:
○ Age
○ History
○ Preparation
○ Genetics
○ Spirituality
○ Duration
○ Meaning given to the event
○ Quality of social support
**Trauma reaction should always be treated as valid, regardless of how the event
that induced it appears to anyone else.**

7. Defining Trauma: The Causes and Types
● Ongoing & Structurally-Induced Trauma:
○ Trauma is not always a single event.
○ Can be caused by abusive/unsafe conditions that are long-term and continuous.
■ Domestic violence situations
■ Areas of conflict with occupation and fear of terrorism
● Societal/Collective Trauma:
○ When a event/series of events impact each individual in a way which leads to a
regional/national impact on the society.
■ Terrorist acts
■ Mass deaths

8. Defining Trauma: The Causes and Types
● Historical Trauma/Cultural Trauma:
○ Historical: Stemming from massive group trauma, this is cumulative emotional and
psychological wounding over the lifespan of the directly affected and the future generations.
■ Slavery, colonialism, persecution, and genocide.
○ Cultural: Created when attempts to eradicate part or all of a culture or people.
■ This continues to happen to many indigenous groups around the world.
● Secondary Trauma:
○ Effects experienced by rescue workers, caregivers, and others who respond to catastrophes
and attend to direct victims first-hand.
■ 9/11, Katrina, etc.
● Participation Trauma:
○ Being an active participant in causing harm to others
○ Can be as or more severe as the trauma the victims experience
■ Car accidents, fires, etc.

9. Common Responses to Traumatic Events
● Trauma affects us physiologically.
○ The brain plays an important part in how we respond to trauma.
● Three parts of the brain:
○ Cerebral Cortex: rational, thinking brain.
○ The Limbic System: the emotional brain (memory storage, emotions,
and first-alert system.
○ Brain Stem: the instinctual brain, controlling automatic reactions,
fight/flight/freeze responses.

10. Common Responses to Traumatic Events
● Trauma has a heavy impact on
the brain.
○ Just 10bpm above baseline can
cause the mind to slip out of
control.
○ This shuts down the rational part
of our brain and causing us to talk,
act, and react from the lower part
of our brain, where out survival
instincts are located.

11. Common Responses to Traumatic Events

12. Common Responses to Traumatic Events
● Traumatic events shatter the world as we know and perceive it to be.
○ This causes disorder, disempowerment, and disconnection.
● Responses:
○ Anger
○ Depression
○ Anxiety
○ Self-doubt
○ Doubt in faith
● These responses are normal and usually sought to find peace with
trauma while enhancing it.

13. Common Responses to Traumatic Events
● Trauma creates needs.
● Justice needs of victims:
○ Safety
○ Information, answers
○ Storytelling/truth-telling
○ Empowerment
○ Vindication (clarification)
○ Restitution

14. Continuing the Cycles: Unhealed Trauma
● When traumatic events happen, we stand at a crossroads.
○ Trauma sparks options in its victims: resilience or retaliation.
● Normal trauma reactions can cause destructive cycles of victimhood or
violence.
● Media displays this daily with stories of illness, death, betrayal, battle, or
war.
○ Themes:
■ Suffering, injustice, fear, hopelessness, powerlessness, shame, humiliation, rage,
retaliation, and hatred.

15. Continuing the Cycles: Unhealed Trauma
● PTSD: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
○ A diagnosis given by mental-health professionals when severe reactions or symptoms of
trauma last longer than one month.
■ Includes re-experiencing the traumatic event, persistent avoidance of stimuli
associated with the event, numbing of general responsiveness, and persistent
increased symptoms of anxiety/arousal.
● The PTSD diagnosis is currently under review for its usefulness when
examining trauma.
○ It is generally accepted by most that there is a small percentage of people who experience
extreme reactions to events.
○ Researchers are now finding that PTSD can be diagnosed in those with normal responses to
normal traumas, not just extreme cases.

16. Continuing the Cycles: Unhealed Trauma
● Reenactment/Trigger Events: Behaviors that turn unhealed trauma
against the self (acting-in) or acting out on others (acting-out).
● Can be brought on simple things: smells, gestures, tone of voice,
group dynamic, symbols.
○ These things can cause intrusive reactions or an unconscious
memory that propels us into low-mode brain reaction.

17. Continuing the Cycles: Unhealed Trauma

18. Continuing the Cycles: Unhealed Trauma
● Imparied functioning:
○ Individuals and societies dealing with traumatic events experience difficulties with:
■ Being emotionally flexible
■ Feeling empathy for the pain of others
■ Being self-aware
■ Acting with an ethical standing and altruism
● Incomplete grieving:
○ Grieving and mourning unfreezes our body, mind, and spirit so that we can think creatively,
feel fully without numbness, and move on.
○ Those who do not get to grieve completely more commonly experience the physical effects
of trauma (nervous system shut down).

19. Continuing the Cycles: Unhealed Trauma
Good versus Evil Narratives:
● Allows the “good” side to project their unwanted characteristics onto the
enemy who is stripped of human goodness.
○ Facts can be twisted, motivations can be embellished, and heroes and villains are created.
Redemptive-Violence Narratives:
● Violence used to overcome violence.
○ Has the power to make victims feel secure, keep them free, and restore a sense of pride and
honor.

20. Continuing the Cycles: Unhealed Trauma
Enemy/Aggressor & Survivor/Victim Cycles

21. Continuing the Cycles: Unhealed Trauma
Good v. Evil and Redemptive-Violence Narratives both lead to
loops of violence and never a spiritual awakening that
transcends trauma or violence.
Since violence creates trauma, trauma can continue to create
violence. The first step to breaking this cycle is acknowledging
trauma, healthy coping, and the importance behind the leaders
who guide trauma victims past the need for violence and
retaliation.

22. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
“The problem is . . . it will not destroy our enemies, it will destroy us.”
-- Fr. Michael Lapsley, SSM (Was talking about responding with hate/ revenge)
● Part III of the Breaking the Cycles model
● Security of neighbors, friend and enemy alike.
● Martha Cabrera : “Affective and spiritual reconstruction”
● The importance of Psychosocial Healing:
○ Psychological and support activities.

23. Breaking the Cycles: The
Journey to Health and
Security
● Three main headings : Safety,
Acknowledgement, Reconnection.
○ Describes the numbered points on this map

24. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
Safety
● Finding Safety, Breaking Free (#1)
● Precondition for healing.
○ Safety is more of like a a foundation that you build to provide
security for not only your emotions, but for the people around
you. It involves care and empathy for one another.
● “Through this process of letting go of blaming, I came
to a place of inner peace. Grief could replace, anger,
and rebuilding could replace grief” - Jean Handley.
● “Acting well in spite of threat”
○ The name of the game when it comes to healing, is to act in a
positive/affective way even when physical safety is not
promised.

25. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
Safety:
● Get Grounded
● Relaxation activities
Learning viable
nonviolent,
nonpassive
alternatives to
threat.
Social support
from inside
and outside
trauma
situation
A sustaining
faith or
spiritual
practice
Positive
leaders.
An active
willingness to
move beyond
victimhood or
violence
An
understanding
of the trauma
cycle and ideas
for breaking
free of it
Using
mind-body
techniques to
counter
hyperarousal
Factors of Healing that involves Safety:

26. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
Safety: The role of leaders
● Positive Leaders:
○ Counselors, religious or political leaders, persons with expertise in trauma and
peacebuilding..
Traits of a Positive Leader
Separate fantasy
from reality, and
the past from the
present.
Evaluate and face
realistic dangers
and
problem-solve
Learn about the
humanity of
enemy groups
Hold the
tension of
paradox
Restore ties to
families, clans, and
other groups that
support reconnecting
to reality.
Value freedom of
speech and
consider what is
moral.

27. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
Acknowledgement: Mourning, grieving our own story, and
naming fears.
● Mourning, grieving (#2) & Accepting the reality of the loss
(#3)
○ Both Facts and Emotions
● Hyperarousal
○ When a person's body suddenly kicks into high alert as a result of
thinking about their trauma.
● Renegotiation
○ The ups and downs between releasing energy blockages and feeling
the accompanying emotions.
● Memorials
○ A physical place to grieve.
○ A symbolic expression of loss
○ The comfort that our loved ones will not be unacknowledged or
forgotten.

28. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
Acknowledgement:
● “When people began to reconstruct,
talk about, reflect on, and assume
their personal and national history, a
fundamental change occurred”
● Life will never be the same.
● Fears about future. (must be
ADDRESSED)

29. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
Acknowledgement: Recognizing that “the other” has
a story.
● Reflecting, understanding root causes,
acknowledging, the enemy’s story, facing own
shortcomings. (#4)
● Questions like “Why me?” Keeps people STUCK.
● “Why them? Why to us?”
● “Today’s aggressors are often yesterday’s
victims.” -Olga Botcharova
● Willing to take risks with policy and action
unimaginable only a short time before.

30. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
Reconnection: Recognizing interdependence,
taking risks
● Commiting to take risks (#5), Tolerance
coexistence (#6), Engaging the offender
(#7)
● Personal Harm
● Humanization
● Programs bring together people from
both sides of conflicts to work on
projects.

31. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
Reconnection:
● Harm is caused by neighbors.
● The purpose: To bring understanding.
● “Never again--”
● New Actions/ Healthy encounters

32. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
Reconnection: Choosing the path to forgiving
● Choosing to forgive (#8)
● Sense of hurt still exist
● Forgiveness is NOT forgetting or foregoing
justice
● Forgiveness made easy?
● Culture of forgiveness must be built through
actions at the personal, cultural, and political
levels.
● Forgiveness may involve restitution

33. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
Reconnection: Seeking justice
● Acknowledging responsibility, restitution, creative justice (#9)
& Negotiating Solutions (#10)
● The world is imperfect.
○ “Your motive in fighting for justice can be as ugly as the thing that you’re
seeking to fight”
● Justice systems serves the common good and helps create
order. But it alone cannot heal.
○ What law was broken?
○ Who did it?
○ What do the lawbreaker deserve?
● Criminal Justice approach
○ Identifies wrongdoers and denounce wrongdoing.
○ Offenders never really get a real understanding about what they did.

34. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
Reconnection:
● Restorative justice
○ Focus on harms done and offers a needs-based
understand of justice.
■ Who has been hurt
■ What are their needs
■ Whose obligations are they
■ What are the causes
■ Who has a stake in the situation
■ What process can include all involved in
addressing needs and obligations and
finding a solution.
○ Focuses on accountability

35. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
Reconnection
● Transformative justice
○ When the act(s) resulted from unhealthy relationships or social or political
structures. Looking beyond individual acts to systematic.
■ What circumstances and structures permitted or encouraged this
■ What structural similarities exist between this and other acts or incidents
■ What measures can be take to change these structures and circumstance to
reduce future occurrences?
● Resolution
○ Working to change larger social and political systems to help prevent recurrence
of the harm.

36. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
Reconnection:
● Transitional justice
○ A way of assisting societies that have been through,
repressive rule or armed conflict to find ways that hold
accountable those responsible for past mass atrocity or
human-rights abuses.
● Creative justice
○ Symbolic acts or works that prevent such harm from
happening again.
○ Dealing with the pass to move into the future.
● Goal: Assuring human dignity for all.

37. Breaking the Cycles: The Journey to Health and Security
Reconnection: Possibility of reconciliation
● Negotiating solutions (#10) &
Integrating Trauma into new
self/group identity (#11)
● Reconciliation
○ Result of labor and grace of the healing
journey.
○ Transforms attitudes, beliefs, and
behaviors towards former enemies and
offenders.
● Transformation involves work on
multiple dimensions

38. What if? 9-11 and Breaking the Cycles
● Wishful thinking and “What if” Questions
○ Another option to be stuck in the past.
○ Can help imagine a different future and even the
present.
● 9/11
○ What if these heinous acts were named a crime
rather than an act of war.
○ What if national days of mourning were called for
the purpose of being silent together..
○ What if it’s not too late to take steps in another
directions.

39. How Then Shall We Live
1. Recognize ourselves as leaders
a. Sphere of influence.
b. Conversations with others and teach about
tit-for-tat cycles.
c. STAR Model
2. Challenge our own faith communities
to live up to the highest ideals.
a. Religious leaders and people of
faith
b. Challenge and confront

40. How Then Shall We Live
3. Prevent trauma by learning to wage peace
● Learn about and articulate viable options
in the public forum
○ promote long-term nonviolent response to
conflicts
○ Short-term responses to immediate crises
● Peace over War
● Inflict a nonviolence mechanism for:
○ Social change
○ Social defense
○ Third-party intervention

41. How Then Shall We Live
4. Work at both the personal and the
communal/ structural levels
● Personal
○ Go into the world as healers.
○ Better than doing it one person at a
time.
○ Connected on a social/structural level.

42. How Then Shall We Live
5. Be informed
● “U.S. is dangerously isolated”
-British Broadcasting Company
● Many mainstream U.S news
sources are more entertainment
and opinion that substance.
● International news is sparse.
● A successful democracy depends
on an informed populace.

43. How Then Shall We Live
6. Remember that we are not alone
● Breaking destructive cycles through
acting well is not an easy task.
● Connect with like minded people to
act, listen, and learn new ways
● Source of life
○ Light overcomes darkness
○ We do not walk alone
○ Peace beyond our fears sustains us as we
commit to living in healing, life-affirming
ways.