Intersection of Individual and Community Trauma and Loss

Politically motivated violence, persecution, and torture affect a growing number people and communities worldwide. Some estimates indicate that over half a million survivors now live in the United States. As a profession, the impact of collective violence - endless war, forced migration, traumatic loss and the human rights abuses that occur in these contexts have never been more clear. Larger numbers of patients impacted by such violence find their way to our offices and to our care. Many practitioners feel at a loss to intervene when the violence, loss and displacement have been pervasive. These patients a...re also coping with numerous post-conflict psychosocial stressors such as housing, language and health care barriers, as well as traumatic grief, many of them having lost family members to targeted and untargeted killings. In fact more and more people live in ongoing insecurity, in long term displacement, such as camps where the term post-conflict…