Reframing Trauma Through Social Justice

This cross disciplinary volume examines and reframes trauma as a social and political issue in the context of wider society, critiquing the widely accepted pathologizing of trauma and violence in current discourse.

Rooted in critical social theory, this insightful text reinvokes the critiques and analysis of the women?s movement and the ?personal is political? framing of trauma to unpack the mainstreaming of trauma discourse which has emerged today. Accomplished contributors address the social construction of femininity and masculinity in relation to trauma and violence, and advocate for a broader framing of trauma away from the constrained focus on pathologizing and diagnosing trauma, individual psychologizing and therapy. Instead, the book offers a fresh and compelling look at how discursive resistance, alternative feminist and narrative approaches to emotional distress and the mental health effects of violence can be developed alongside community-based, preventive, political and policy-based actions to create effective shifts in discourse, practice, policy, and programming.

This is fascinating reading for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers, and academics in a broad range of fields of study including psychology, social work, gender and women?s studies, and sociology, as well as professionals including policy makers, clinical psychologists, and social workers.

?Catrina Brown and colleagues have once again debunked a tin god in the world of therapy and shown it to operate in the service of neoliberalism, individualism, and the social control of those struggling with mental health. This rigorous and path breaking volume is critical of the widespread pathologising and biomedicalising of trauma, and shows instead the efficacy and hopefulness of feminist and narrative approaches to violence and human distress, operating within well-resourced community-based prevention and supports. An excellent book for practitioners and students, and all those working for more socially just futures.?

Donna Baines, Professor and Former Director of the UBC School of Social Work, The University of British Columbia, Canada.

?Reflective of classic feminist trauma analyses, ala Judith Herman, Christine Courtois, Laura Brown, and Bonnie Burstow, this inspirational multi-disciplinary volume celebrates resistance to the pathologizing bio-medical and neo-liberal framing of trauma. In contrast, this innovative book reframes trauma as social justice, deconstructs how discursive/institutional practices and structural systems of power/oppression are co-implicated in people?s struggles, and advocates alternative feminist practices and approaches that are structural, preventative, and community/ care-based. In doing so, this book helps to enhance capacity to better serve and support survivors, sustain practitioners as active witnesses to trauma, build healthier communities, and fulfill professional objectives to achieve social justice.?

Dr. Susan Hillock, Professor of Social Work, Trent University, Canada.

"This book refreshingly moves away from pathologizing constructions of trauma to critically analysing how aspect such as hierarchically embedded medicalised discourses, gendered power relations and socially constructed scenarios frame and reframe interactions, understandings and knowledge reproduction. It not only presents a compelling critique but also offers grass roots ways forward that emphasise a range of viable and diverse policy and practice options. It is essential reading for policy makers, practitioners and students. All of whom have substantial capacity to engage in transformational change."

Barbara Fawcett is Professor of Social Work at the University of Strathclyde, UK. She specialises in research methodologies, post structural feminist analyses and associated research in the arenas of mental health, disability and older age. 

"In this excellent collection, the authors use their varied locations and experiences to reflect on how the suffering of women and men in neoliberal societies has been reframed in ways that are extremely damaging to them and to the pursuit of social justice. Whose knowledge counts and whose voices can be heard are key concerns throughout with a critical intersectional lens applied to the processes of silencing and invalidating. Very valuable practice alternatives are offered drawing from the authors? engagement with intergenerational and culturally embedded stories of healing and restoration."

Brid Featherstone, Professor of Social Work, University of Huddersfield, UK.

"This much needed volume rebuts the pathologizing of trauma as individual inadequacy and provides a counternarrative reaching into feminist analyses of subjugation by bio-medical industries. Turning trauma-informed therapy on its head, symptoms are reframed from personal deficiency into coping skills in an unjust world and attention is redirected to the violent sources of trauma. Multiple contributing authors offer perspectives out of the wealth of their own personal experience, cultural contexts, practice settings, and qualitative research while consistently returning to the central theme of making sense of what is labelled as ?disorders? and moving us toward respect, trust, and healing."

Joan Pennell, Professor Emerita, North Carolina State University, USA and long-term feminist activist and proponent of restorative approaches.

?Reframing Trauma through Social Justice: Resisting the Politics of Mainstream Trauma Discourse is a welcome antidote to the proliferation of neuro-centric perspectives on trauma, which reinforce neoliberal and postfeminist individualistic understandings. Grounded firmly in the rich history of feminist responses to trauma, this collection uses intersectional and postmodern frameworks to surface the ways in which trauma is intimately tied social and structural inequities. Designed with practitioners in mind, contributing scholars provide alternative responses to trauma grounded in narrative and relational approaches that upend psychiatric hegemony. The result is a handbook of ?discursive resistance? to mainstream trauma talk, which can guide practice and wider societal responses.?

Marina Marrow, Professor and Chair of the School of Health Policy and Management, York University, Canada.

"Brown and her colleagues call into question taken-for-granted, pathologizing discourses and assumptions about trauma based on individualized understandings and practices, and instead band together in a collective resistance understanding trauma as a social justice issue. They offer powerful alternative possibilities for moving away from demoralizing practices toward remoralizing practices. A must read for those involved in working with people who have experienced the consequences of trauma."

Jim Duvall, Co-Editor / JST Institute, Editor/ Journal of Systemic Therapies. 

"This timely collection delivers some much-needed critical engagement with mainstream trauma theory and the policies and interventions, such as trauma-informed care, that are associated with it. It provides nuanced analysis and critique from a wide range of theoretical perspectives, including decolonial, Black, (dis)Ability, feminist and intersectional, with an emphasis on hearing directly from those impacted. Importantly, it also examines the resources and practices that some individuals and communities have drawn on to survive and heal. Individually and collectively, the authors chart a path away from standardized, formulaic, and ineffective conceptualizations of trauma and recovery towards interventions and approaches that are contextualized, collaborative, and collective ? and effective. This book is a valuable resource for anyone looking for a critique and corrective to the predominance of individualized trauma talk in culture and society."

Susan Strega, Professor Emerita, School of Social Work, University of Victoria, Canada.