TRUTH AND REPAIR

Imagining healing for survivors of violence.

In this follow-up to Trauma and Recovery, Herman, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School with decades of experience treating traumatized patients, presents a set of strategies for recovery, with a particular focus on the experiences of women and children. As she explains, survivors must navigate several stages as they work toward therapeutic outcomes, beginning with securing a sense of present safety and then moving on to making sense of trauma through grieving, strengthening ties to a supportive network of others, and finally seeking justice through some form of public recognition. As Herman makes clear, healing requires seizing the moral attention of community members, who must play the crucial role of confirming that wrongs have been committed. “Acknowledgement of the survivor’s truth, acknowledgement of the harm she has suffered, and full apology, with remorse and without excuses—for many survivors, these are the requisite actions by which perpetrators and bystanders can begin the process of healing, moving from truth to repair,” writes the author, who makes a persuasive argument that acts of violence must be understood in both personal and transpersonal terms. In other words, individual trauma is always bound up with ideological structures that can facilitate forms of abuse and prolong suffering. To that end, Herman combines sensitive commentary on the testimonies of particular survivors with analysis of the social, economic, and legal contexts in which their victimization took place. Also astute are the author’s reflections on the shortcomings of the American justice system when it comes to serving “the well-being of the victim rather than the punishment of the offender.” Herman argues convincingly that, in many instances, survivors’ search for justice must include restorative rather than retributive justice. As it stands, “the justice system offer[s] them very little incentive to endure the rigors of a trial.”

A compelling outline of the necessary conditions of personal and collective recovery from trauma.