The Little Book of Trauma Healing

It was very good to read this book.
It was very hard to read this book.
It was reassuring to read this book.
I don't want to ever talk about this book.
All I want is to talk about this book.

"When Violence strikes and community security is threatened"
Oh god..only the title...oh man..

I think that for this post I will concentrate on the parts that were reassuring:
One thing that was reassuring was the way the author described the process of healing through emotional discharge. Her descriptions were very much in lined with co counseling theory about healing. I was surprised to hear her perspective because I feel that many times in psychology this process is not explained in such a straight forward manner. How she talked about the importance of discharge and how many times this process is interrupted/stopped because people get scared to 'lose it' (or that somebody else is losing it) made allot of sense to me. I was also interesting to hear how science explains this process in the brain.
Also the author expressed doubt about the usefulness of labeling people with PTSD. I was glad to hear that this discussion is taking place in the psychology world because my family and I were harmed from the way the mental health system labels people who seems to be having 'too many feelings'. I really think that many times it doesn't help to label people with mental illnesses. I know that at least for me, and other people I know, it affected me in away that for most of my life it made feel like there was something inherently wrong with  brain.
Another part that was interesting for me was the idea of the chosen trauma. Yoder writes: " Without an experience of justice, deliberate acts of harm often become 'choosen traumas', a shared traumatic event that is chosen to be kept alive through the generations and becomes an integral part of a group's identity. Chosen traumas are characterized by an obsessive sense of being wronged by the "other" and by a sense of entitlement" (p. 29)
This passage made me think about the Jewish people relationship with the holocaust. My first reaction while I was reading was thinking that this idea could easily be understood like there was something wrong with remembering and having many feelings about what happened. I wanted to defend myself and my people right away.
My next thought was about all the memorial day services that I have participated in since I was little and how the way they were conducted kind of traumatized me. The ceremonies keep the trauma alive and pass it to the young people. It is very confusing because it makes sense to learn about our history but there is defiantly a way in which we do it in Israel that is so intense and painful. Or is it the reality that is painful?

Can't think more about this book
Every page makes me gag
Hope to cry and laugh about it more with you holding my hand

Restorative Justice Seminar

I enjoyed and appreciated having Amanda talk with us. First because of how humble and receptive she was. I was struck by how open she was to our comments and suggestions. Second, I was intrigued by the practice of restorative justice, it seems very much in lined with other ideas and practices we learned this semester. I can see a common thread between RJ , ideas from the Moral Imagination, NVC and mediation. The common thread is the idea that healing and transformation of society is based on building strong and lasting relationships. In the Moral Imagination, Lederach writes about the importance of 'web watching' meaning recognizing how are people connected and utilizing these relationships in order to bring about change. In the process of mediation people are called to recognize their joint interests/needs and find solutions that will  benefit both parties. Also the simple fact of people sitting together, talking things through and making a joint effort- this of itself  means that people are trying to stay in some kind of relationship. In NVC we learned to listen to the deep needs of people and develop the capacity to 'stay in relationship' even if the other person is speaking 'Jackel' to us.
In Restorative Justice the goal is maintain and repair relationships and no put problems/people away. Instead, having to figure out a solution where people ca continue living together in relationship.
It's exciting to notice this interesting commonality between all this practices.

I especially liked to learn about RJ because it ventures out to areas of law and prison. It deals with hard topics and people who are generally labeled as the outskirts of society.I feel like this practice challenges ideas of good vs bad& reward vs punishment (which NVC also does). It reaches out to rehumanize people, even those who have harmed others. This practice aims to figure out how to not isolate these people but instead help them to find their place in the web of life.

final project update

After considering a couple of different ideas for my final project I decided to go for the interviews. I feel that one of my initial interests fr this semester was to challenge my perspective about the Palestinian -Israeli conflict. I wanted to push myself and see where are the places where I get triggered, what is the stuff that is hard for me to talk about and where do I have a hard time listening? I think that a great place to start is through interviewing and listening to different people who are involved with the conflict.
My main objective is to get a bigger picture about this conflict- how did it start, who is involved and how/why, where is it going and what is a rational solution.
I want to do this through listening to different opinions and stories about the conflict from varied people.

One important point:
While conducting my research I began to notice a very interesting and challenging aspect of dealing with this conflict. As I started thinking about this conflict and exposing myself to the reality of the occupation and the history of how Israel was founded I had to start asking myself questions about my roll as an oppressor. Just dealing with oppressor 'stuff'/oppressive pattern is not easy by itself but I found it even trickier because of the way antisemitism affects Jews and how we have internalized it. What I mean by that is 1. Anti Jewish oppression and anti-Israel sentiment exists in the world yet many many times it is completely ignored! It is sometimes not mentioned even in the most progressive human rights gatherings. This fact makes it hard for people in Israel and for Jewish people in general to understand their own situation and to also be able to think well of the Palestinians.
2. As far as I can tell Jews in Israel are both in the roll of the oppressor and the roll of the oppressed. but the way that they are oppressed is hidden and ignored.
There is much more I want to understand and think about in this matter, but the point right now that I am shooting to figure out is how can we/I work on my oppressor stuff while not putting the Israeli's down beating ourselves up...more to come on this matter!

So far I have interviewed three people from the Boulder/Denver community!
The interviews where 2 hour long each and went very well. Each one had a completely different feel and shed light on different subjects. I am really excited to listen to them again and write my final paper!

I am also considering conducting one more interview that I think will be very important for my ability to work with this subject. This interview I want to do with one of the leaders of Jewish people in Co counseling. I think this will help me get a better picture of this whole oppressor/oppressed stuff.