Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing

Chapter 2
All these persistent changes in the social structure of Aboriginal societies had profound psychological
effects on the social psyche of the people, which included social fatalism (the world was approached
with distrust) and impoverishment of communication (there was no connection between Aboriginal
people and the world outside). Being depersonalized as a social and cultural entity, having lost their
social autonomy, their sense of social integrity and inter-dependence, without any semblance of social
control, Aboriginal people became objects of non-Aboriginal constructions of the otherness. Being
isolated from meaningful contacts with the world, cut off from their own traditional social meanings,
resulted in social depersonalization that, according to Cattell and colleagues, is characterized by “feelings
of unreality in reference to the self, the external world, or the passage of time; feelings of unreality or
detachment, and loss of affective response” (1963:88-100).
Psychologists agree that severe stress, caused by a traumatic event (military combat or other catastrophe)
can be a predisposing factor to a personality disorder. Dissociated states can occur in people who have
been subjected to periods of prolonged and intense coercive persuasion (e.g., brainwashing, thought
reform, or indoctrination while the captive of terrorists or cultists). In children, dissociated states may
occur following physical abuse or trauma. The course of the disorder is generally chronic with a psychoactive
substance use disorder as a complication. If it occurs primarily in identity, the person’s customary
identity is temporarily forgotten, and a new identity may be assumed or imposed (American Psychiatric
Association, 1994). When translating psychological findings to social contexts, one can clearly delineate
the process of social identity dissociation in which the Aboriginal social self was forced into invisibility
for generations to come.
Late Period - Cultural Oppression - Psychological Area of Impact
When loss is converted into absence, one faces the impasse of endless melancholy,
impossible mourning and interminable aporia [sic] in which any process of working
through the past and its historical losses is foreclosed or prematurely aborted (LaCapra,
1999:2).
It is very difficult to envision the incredible loss that Aboriginal people experienced after years of physical
and cultural destruction. What is a society to do when it loses its collective behavioural rules, its social
structure, and its collective cultural memory that shape how the meanings of past, present and future
are being internalized and externalized for the generations to come? What about people (children,
adults and elders) who are embedded in their memory-less, void and hollow social post-trauma milieu,
in the absent past, in the ambiguous present and in their depersonalized future? How can people begin
life again in such circumstances, with their memories dormant, silent and almost fossilized in time,
with their inner collective gaze fixed on the tragedy that once happened and with all other horizons of
hope blurred beyond recognition? As Wig (2001) proposes, psychological symptoms are very common
among the survivors of disasters. The symptoms are often serious and last a long time, disrupting life’s
routine and causing considerable suffering. The immediate reactions to disaster are most disturbing.
One … [may have] suffered physical injuries … [may have been] exposed to extreme
danger, [may have] witnessed death of dear and near ones or [may have] seen mass
deaths and destruction. During a disaster, one experiences the feeling of helplessness.
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