Trauma in Genocide

Abstract

Might our conceptualizations of trauma be hindering our capacity for collective healing? Currently, hegemonic mental health discourses and services rely heavily on the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) conceptualization of trauma. While various scholars, activists, and clinicians have argued that this conceptualization is limited in its ability to capture (and consequently, to inform adequate interventions) for minoritized and chronically stressed, oppressed, or traumatized individuals and communities, the provision of services (through institutionalized insurance and healthcare systems, especially) remains largely rooted in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) criteria for PTSD. These criteria often position individuals either as pathologized victims of traumatic incidents or as fortunate/successful survivors of it. This position paper summarizes the need for a more nuanced conceptualization as argued by many decolonial scholars and activists. It highlights an important responsibility for health providers that is often ignored: We must go beyond doing no harm and treating individual symptoms, strive towards social change, and effectively contribute to anti-oppressive and justice-oriented politics. It situates this argument in the ongoing genocide against Palestinians to showcase the collective and cumulative sequelae of continuous subjugation and traumatization, including the adoption of resistance and heroism as adaptive survival tactics.