One of my present jobs is to offer counselling in a centre for survivors of trauma after the conflict in Northern Ireland. From 1969 until 2001, an estimated 3,523 people were killed in the conflict, 40,000 were injured, not to mention the thousands of husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, children, relatives, neighbours and teachers psychologically affected by those traumatic events.
I know from my experience as a missionary in Pakistan that the support of a group can be healing and empowering for those who have suffered a trauma. That’s why I was happy when I was asked to facilitate a group of women on the topic of ‘Reminiscence and Overcoming Trauma’ at The Survivors of Trauma Centre in North Belfast.
‘Survivors’, as it is commonly known, was established in 1995 by Brendan Bradley together with other relatives of those who had been killed in North Belfast during the Northern Ireland ‘troubles’. In this area alone there were 600 sectarian murders.
At Survivors, Marie Close, the Director, and her team work tirelessly for peace, reconciliation and healing for those affected by the trauma of ‘the troubles’ irrespective of their religious and political background. For the last 15 years both in Ireland and in Pakistan I have been interested in the way psychological trauma affects people’s lives, and together with Christian faith, what are the paths to healing and recovery.
I was well aware how the group of women at Survivors had each a story and sometimes many stories of the awful loss of loved ones. In fact in our meeting room there was a large banner of a tree with over 400 leaves and each leaf represented a person who had been killed in the local area due to the conflict. So I had to respect their heartache but also to affirm their resilience and strength.
I had been asked to facilitate reminiscence, that is to ‘think and talk about things remembered from the past’. I realised that it would be of help to the women to recall their common memories of growing up at home, the games they played as children and their journey into work, relationships, and for many starting families of their own.
Each time we met we would spend an hour reminiscing about our past with the help of old photographs of children’s street games such as hopscotch, swinging round lamp posts and skipping. To my surprise the whole group could identify with one another’s experiences of growing up at home, or playing in the street, or going to school.
Then after a scrumptious tea break our focus changed from our thoughts and memories to the effect trauma can have on our bodies. ‘The body keeps the score’ as Dr Bessel Van der Kolk a leading expert on trauma tells us. “ In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.”
The fascia under our skin and our senses are affected by traumatic experience, before our minds can try and make sense of it by creating memories. When trauma is very overwhelming, literally beyond our comprehension, then our minds sometimes postpone processing what has happened, but all this time ‘our body remembers!’ Therefore with great gentleness we took time to listen to the body.
We then looked at how the traumatic incidents had affected us by making a graph of how our lives have developed. I did this by giving each person a ribbon and using the open floor, asking them to show a graph of how they perceive their lives to have developed. All of the graphs started with a straight horizontal line followed by a sharp dip at the time of the trauma. Some noted how after the traumatic experience their lives remained at the ‘lower level’ – but then a shift would take place and they were able to move the graph higher up the scale of well-being.
What was very touching was when some women extended their graph way beyond the normal position.
They were identifying how the traumatic experience, terrible though it was, had helped them realise their strengths and resilience, and how they had met many great people who supported them in their struggle.
After our weekly sessions concluded it was a great joy for me to learn how the women had continued to meet and had created a beautiful ‘Reminiscence Tapestry’. Remembering family, street games, friendship and play. The gifts of life and faith have helped them through the challenges and difficulties of loss.
Columban Fr Paul McMahon was ordained in 1991. He has worked on mission in Pakistan and more recently Belfast, Ireland.
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LISTEN TO: Grown up and still traumatised (Duration: 5:52mins. MP3, 1.2.68MB) |