"Trauma and healing in Aboriginal families and communities"

Abstract

Traumatized people feel utterly abandoned, utterly alone, cast out of the human and divine systems of care and protection that sustain life. Thereafter, a sense of alienation, of disconnection, pervades every relationship, from the most intimate familial bonds to the most abstract affiliations of community and religion (Herman, 1997, p.52). This paper considers how traumatization of Aboriginal people may be of a unique process, characterized as it is by a long-standing and continuing history of repeating traumatic events, which affect entire communities; the length of time and extent of the trauma make it extremely difficult for the process of healing to take place.