Stories
Explore stories and perspectives on cycles of trauma, social change, and journeys to wellbeing.
Webinars
Series On Trauma & Systems Change in collaboration with Collective Change Lab
More Webinars
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Sharon Salzberg and Parker J. Palmer are joined by poet, author and inner work teacher, Kim Rosen, and best-selling author and trauma expert, Dr. Gabor Maté.
*Please note: this WELLbinar includes music and live poetry readings.
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Sharon Salzberg and Parker Palmer meet with special guests, Dr. Sará King and Justin Michael Williams, to explore diversity, equity and inclusion through the lens of wellbeing and mindfulness.
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As we Face/Forward and make strides toward systemic change, we must also create space to acknowledge and honor the immense individual and collective loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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In this episode of “It’s Not Your Money,” Capital Collaborative Senior Advisor Jessamyn Shams-Lau talks with Chicago Beyond’s Shruti Jayaraman, to discuss trauma-informed funding, how philanthropy can actually be grounded in justice, and the paradox of envisioning equity within an inequitable system.
More Stories From Around The World
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Addressing Trauma as a Pathway to Social Change
By Ijeoma Njaka & Duncan Peacock
How understanding intergenerational trauma can help people working toward social change solve problems more effectively.
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The Power Of Collective Healing To Support Healthy People On A Thriving Planet
By Gary Cohen
Healing collective trauma at the community level, and planetary health are now becoming part of the DNA of the healthcare system, and that gives me an enormous amount of hope.
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The Problem With Resilience As We Know It
By Ruchita Chandrashekar
Because resilience today has become an expected and standard response to distress, failure to achieve it implies that something is wrong with us.
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Four Seasons Under One Sky: Arts As A Collective Approach To Creativity And Healing In South Africa
By Marlize Swanpoel
Join sp(i)eel arts therapies collective’s co-founder and director, Marlize Swanepoel, for a visual expedition through sp(i)eel’s Families and Collective Futures, where the rhythms of nature guide our understanding of mental health and community resilience.
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Bringing Trauma-Informed Practices to Schools in Guatemala
With support from the Fossil Foundation, Glasswing International has launched a project that offers support to over 367 students and 164 teachers from 20 schools in the communities of Villa Nueva and Mixco in Guatemala.
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Can the legacy of trauma be passed down the generations?
Our children and grandchildren are shaped by the genes they inherit from us, but new research is revealing that experiences of hardship or violence can leave their mark too.
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Decades after the Việt Nam War, Healing is Much Needed for Amerasians and Their Families
About 100,000 Amerasians were born during the war from relationships between Vietnamese women and U.S. soldiers. I'm determined to employ literature to foster empathy, healing and reconciliation.
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The Freedom and Right to Share Our Stories: Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai on Decolonising Literature
Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai on decolonising literature about Việt Nam by writing in the language of the coloniser.
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Everything You Need To Know About Trauma and PTSD
Though it’s often associated with the horrors of war, post-traumatic stress disorder can affect anyone
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How does trauma spill from one generation to the next?
Intergenerational trauma has become a hot topic as people seek to explain the poor state of mental health among younger generations.
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Is trauma handed down through generations?
Psychologists increasingly think PTSD can be passed down – what does that mean for regions hit by conflict?
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Parents' emotional trauma may change their children's biology. Studies in mice show how
Suffering triggers changes in gene expression that last for generations.
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Trauma-Informed Mental Healthcare
High rates of violence and poverty lead to trauma, irregular migration, and poor educational, social, and economic outcomes for entire communities. Latin America is largely a mental health desert, where access to mental healthcare is extremely limited, especially at the community level.
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We don’t live in isolation. Our ancestors’ trauma can affect our health generations later
Our wellbeing is inextricably linked to our childhoods, which in turn is influenced by the lives of our parents and grandparents.
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Petals of Hope
By Carole Kane
Carole initiated and organised workshops during the immediate aftermath of the bomb in Omagh in 1998. Work formed an exhibition and a book called "Petals of Hope".
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Cultivating a Thriving Inner Landscape Where our Potential Can Bloom
By Catalina Cock Duque
Seven learnings on how Mental Health helps achieve Social Change and peacebuilding.
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Creating Art & Peace in Africa with Green String Network
By The Wellbeing Project
Green String Network (GSN) is an African based organization. They are a network of like-minded individuals and organizations working on developing trauma-informed peacebuilding.
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Holocaust Trauma and its Effects, Generations Later
By Deborah Yaffe
When Adam P. Frankel ’03 began writing his memoir, he had no idea how much the Holocaust informed his family dynamic.
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Can We Really Inherit Trauma?
By Benedict Carey
Headlines suggest that the epigenetic marks of trauma can be passed from one generation to the next. But the evidence, at least in humans, is circumstantial at best.
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How Parents’ Trauma Leaves Biological Traces in Children
By Rachel Yehuda
Adverse experiences can change future generations through epigenetic pathways.
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Intergenerational Trauma Is a Biological Reality
By A. Abbas Naqvi
Can we inherit the trauma of our ancestors and pass down our own trauma to later generations?
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It Didn't Start With You: The Mystery of Inherited Trauma
By Mark Matousek
A revealing talk with Mark Wolynn of the Family Constellation Institute.
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What Is Intergenerational Trauma? Meaning & Effects
By Mirel Zaman
We asked Mariel Buquè, PhD, a trauma therapist, to explain how intergenerational trauma works — and what, if anything, can be done to heal from it.
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How to Make Your Yoga Class More Trauma-Sensitive
By Hala Khouri
Help your students feel safe and at home in their bodies through trauma-informed yoga.
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Advice From a Therapist on Breaking Free From Intergenerational Trauma
By Mariel Buqué
Below, Mariel shares 5 key insights from her new book, Break the Cycle: A Guide to Healing Intergenerational Trauma.
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The Importance of Well-Being and Personal Healing for Racial Equity Work
B Corp Leader Shares Mindfulness Tools for Individual and Collective Action
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Learning From the Climate-Mental Health Convergence
By Lian Zeitz, John Jamir Benzon R. Aruta & Kelly Davis
The climate movement has lessons for all social impact practitioners working to create a more just and healthy world.
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Why Feelings Of Worthlessness Often Stem From Childhood Wounds, According To A Therapist
By Vienna Pharaon, M.S.
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Racism takes a toll on the brain, research shows
By Richard Sima
The chronic stress of structural racism and discrimination damages brain circuits and mental health.
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The Legacy of Trauma
By Tori DeAngelis
An emerging line of research is exploring how historical and cultural traumas affect survivors’ children for generations to come.
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How Historical Trauma Lives in Us All
By Joanna Cheek M.D.
Intergenerational trauma lives on all sides of our divided world.
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Intergenerational strengths that can be passed on through generations
By Tapatrisha Das
From creativity to good communication skills, here are a few intergenerational strengths that can be passed on.
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The Intergenerational Wisdom of Anxiety
By Joanna Cheek M.D.
How our ancestors shape our anxiety response.
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It's really heavy work' How a shift in the traditional approach to therapy supports a group that's usually reluctant to do it
By Raine Kuch
Their personal trauma with gun violence equips local intervention workers to fight on the front lines against it. But at what cost to their own mental health? How a shift in the traditional approach to therapy supports a group that’s usually reluctant to do it.
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School program reduces trauma in Latina and Black girls but faces implementation hurdles
By Kathleen Hayes
Working on Womanhood is an evidence-based mental health support for often-overlooked student groups. But challenges to scaling it and programs like it are numerous.
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‘Lifelong’ healing journey: Rotorua woman honoured for violence prevention work
By Michaela Pointon
Kahira Rata Patricia Olley: Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to women, youth and the prevention of family violence.
Understanding & Addressing Intergenerational Trauma with Nadine Kaslow, PhD & Dr. Sará King
More Videos
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Brandy shares a personal story of how a 8 year old girl who felt abandonment begin her healing process because of the birth of her own daughters as an adult. She challenges the ideas and practices of generations before her, to show up for her younger self all while being conscious enough to raise daughters intentionally. The 8 year old girl as an adult makes amends with her younger self and encourages the audience to do the same! Brandy shares a personal story of how a 8 year old girl who felt abandonment begin her healing process because of the birth of her own daughters as an adult. She challenges the ideas and practices of generations before her, to show up for her younger self all while being conscious enough to raise daughters intentionally. The 8 year old girl as an adult makes amends with her younger self and encourages the audience to do the same! This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
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Burnout is rife, yet most of us don't realise that trauma underlies much of it. In this powerful and wise talk, Dr Hallam talks about burnout and trauma on the front lines of healthcare and war. She shares her lesson for humanity: to heal the world we need to heal ourselves and Compassion is the sacred medicine at the heart of all our therapeutic modalities.
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Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, clinical psychologist and senior research professor in South Africa, served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She explains her understanding of trauma.
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Please join award winning author Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai as she discusses her latest book, The Mountains Sing, a novel about multiple generations of a family living through the decades of war in Vietnam. Hosted by Veterans For Peace, this conversation, to include a reading from The Mountains Sing, will allow attendees to join with Que Mai to discuss the lasting effects of war on all participants. Moderated by Veterans For Peace advisory board member, Matthew Hoh, this will be both a timely and timeless conversation about war, borders, history, nationalities and the urgent need for a renewed dedication towards peace, reconciliation and internationalism.
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Conventional psychiatric practices tell us that if we feel bad, take this drug and it will go away. But after years of research with some of the top psychiatric practitioners in the world, we’ve found that drugs simply don’t work that well for many, and our conventional ways of healing trauma need to change.
WATCH HERE
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Cecilia Flores-Oebanda is the president and executive director of Visayan Forum, a non-profit, non-governmental organisation based in the Philippines. Visayan Forum focuses on promoting the development, welfare and rights of marginalised people to end human trafficking. Cecilia and Visayan, now called Voice for the Free, have trained more than 1000 collaborators in the work against human trafficking and have helped more than 60,000 victims.
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Dr. Barry Kerzin, physician, buddhist monk and speaker at The Wellbeing Summit for Social Change, shares tools for us all to lead happier lives and to be more thorough in our healing of grief.
Part of his work centres around "emotional hygiene" without suppression, giving people practical methods to transform anger into tolerance and patience, and to recognise jealousy and transform it into admiration and appreciation.
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Rajni Bakshi is a Mumbai-based author, speaker and founder of 'Ahimsa Conversations', an online platform for exploring the possibilities of nonviolence.
In this interview, she shares her belief that by making space for open dialogue and taking time to understand movements, we can collectively sustain more conscious and humane models of development.
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Suparna Diwakar, co-founder at the India School of Development Management and speaker at The Wellbeing Summit for Social Change, joins us to share the importance of building young social entrepreneurs’ resilience and enabling them to respond to the world’s many complex challenges so that together we can co-create a different future.
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An 'Educaring' approach to healing generational trauma in Aboriginal Australia
Professor Judy Atkinson, We Al-li, and Dr Caroline Atkinson, Southern Cross Uni
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Leah’s idea is based around her unique family history during WWII and her most recent film called BIG SONIA (www.bigsonia.com), about her 91 year-old grandmother Sonia. The film explores how “intergenerational trauma” affects families how one tiny woman is making a huge impact on future generations by promoting love over hate. Understanding Sonia’s trauma and complexities forces Leah to come to terms with her own issues and insecurities in a way that’s both relatable and universal.
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In an interview with Dipl. Psych., Dipl. Wi.-Ing. Bernhard Trenkle, Prof. Bessel van der Kolk illustrates the manifold consequences of traumatic experiences on body and mind, how trauma therapy can contribute to "detoxication" and which therapeutic methods are especially appropriate therefor. He briefly introduces his recent research project and enlarges on the development and capabilities of the fields of neurofeedback and mindfulness.
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Falvey Memorial Library presents a lecture by Sheryl Perlmutter Bowen, PhD, Department of Communication, titled "Transcending Trauma: Female Communication in Holocaust Survivor Families." This talk is part of the Conscience of the Holocaust lecture series, an annual event held by the Library to commemorate the anniversary of Simon Wiesenthal's death (Sept. 20) and to recognize his achievements and legacy in relation to the Holocaust.
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Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela's keynote address at the opening of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation and War Trauma Foundation co-hosted conference, titled "Healing Communities, Transforming Societies: Exploring the interconnectedness between psycho-social needs, practice and peace-building.
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Dartmouth senior, Anise Vance '11, explores how a desire for identity led him to his father's hometown of Hartford, CT where he found a problem far beyond his imagination and a solution more empowering than he could have ever imagined.
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Hardin Coleman, dean of the School of Education, talks about ways to break cycles of trauma during the Boston University Danielsen Institute Templeton Lecture, Coleman shares his experiences working with multigenerational, Afro-centric populations who have experienced abuse for his lecture.
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The first generation of South Africans born in the post Apartheid era turn nineteen this year. They hold the hopes, dreams, fears and aspirations of a young, emerging democracy - the promise of freedom. By 2030, they should form the core of the country's workforce and leadership across all sectors. But given the burgeoning youth bulge, the crises in education, and the South African economy's inability to create a significant number of new jobs, trend analyst Dion Chang poses an interesting question: Are the born-frees born to free-fall?
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For 46 years, South Africans lived under Apartheid, a strict policy of segregation that barred the country’s Black majority from skilled, high-paying jobs, quality education, voting, and much more. So, how did these laws come to be? And how did this era of institutionalized discrimination finally come to an end? Thula Simpson explores how colonization led to the national trauma of Apartheid. [Directed by Aya Marzouk, Giraffics, narrated by Safia Elhillo, music by Salil Bhayani, cAMP Studio].
Podcast
Healthy Minds in Practice: Healing Intergenerational Trauma
What We Gain From Pain | Hidden Brain
The Trauma Expert: 7 Generations Of Trauma Live In Your Body. This is how you break free | Dr. Mariel Buqué
Poetry
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My Father's Bàng Tree
By Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
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The Poem I Can’t Yet Name
By Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
Film
The Wisdom of Trauma
Trauma is the invisible force that shapes our lives. It shapes the way we live, the way we love and the way we make sense of the world. It is the root of our deepest wounds. Dr. Maté gives us a new vision: a trauma-informed society in which parents, teachers, physicians, policy-makers and legal personnel are not concerned with fixing behaviors, making diagnoses, suppressing symptoms and judging, but seek instead to understand the sources from which troubling behaviors and diseases spring in the wounded human soul