Historical trauma or collective trauma refers to the cumulative emotional harm of an individual or generation caused by a traumatic experience or event. According to its advocates, collective trauma evokes a variety of responses, most prominently through substance abuse, which is used as a vehicle for attempting to numb pain. This model seeks to use this to explain other self-destructive behavior, such as suicidal thoughts and gestures, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, anger, violence, and difficulty recognizing and expressing emotions. Many historians and scholars believe the manifestations of violence and abuse in certain communities are directly associated with the unresolved grief that accompanies continued trauma. Historical trauma and its manifestations are seen as an example of transgenerational trauma (though the existence of transgenerational trauma itself is disputed). For example, a pattern of paternal abandonment of a child might be seen across three generations, or the actions of an abusive parent might be seen in continued abuse across generations. These manifestations can also stem from the trauma of events, such as the witnessing of war, genocide, or death. For these populations that have witnessed these mass-level traumas, several generations later, these populations tend to have higher rates of disease.
Definition The term collective trauma calls attention to the "psychological reactions to a traumatic event that affect[s] an entire society." Collective trauma does not only represent a historical fact or event, but is a collective memory of an awful event that happened to that group of people. American sociologist Kai Erikson was one of the first to document collective trauma in his book Everything in Its Path, which documented the aftermath of a catastrophic flood in 1972. Gilad Hirschberger of Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel, defines the term:
The term collective trauma refers to the psychological reactions to a traumatic event that affect an entire society; it does not merely reflect an historical fact, the recollection of a terrible event that happened to a group of people. It suggests that the tragedy is represented in the collective memory of the group, and like all forms of memory it comprises not only a reproduction of the events, but also an ongoing reconstruction of the trauma in an attempt to make sense of it. Clarifying the term collective, Ursula König (2018) focused on two different levels of collective trauma:
Identity group level: Traumatisation can occur amongst various identity groups i.e. race, age, class, caste, religious and/or ethnic groups. Both size and group coherence may differ and different identity markers may overlap (intersectionality), influencing inter and intra-group dynamics. Society-level: At the societal level, societies may be affected by traumatisation within a nation state or at a sub/transnational level, influencing the fabric of society as well as the interactions within and between societies. According to these two distinctions, a collective trauma can only be defined as such if affects can be clearly defined at either level. For example, the traumatisation of many individuals may not be considered collective, unless their traumatic experiences are used as key identity markers in public discourses and/or as a way of self-expression/-definition. Once trauma of many individuals is framed and used as a collective identity marker we can speak of it as such. Furthermore, a distinction can be made between collective identity markers which in practice are all highly interwoven:
Collective narratives Collective emotions Collective mental models/norms and values.
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