Blog Post #10 Healing Centered Engagement
Argument - The author, Shawn Ginwright argues that the way of going about making a more "resilient" youth, has been done wrong. More specifically he brings up the term, "trauma -informed care" and how it has been s step in the right direction as it focuses on treating the whole person that has experienced trauma, rather than treating specific symptoms. However, he argues that this method has limitations, and puts people under this blanket that they are merely a victim. It can make people feel that they are a product of their trauma, and nothing more, rather than trying to life them out of that trauma and showing them what they are outside of what happened to them. He offers a new approach called HCE or healing centered engagement. this takes a new perspective on how to look at trauma, as it raises a new question from "what's wrong with you?", to "what is good about you?". This approach focuses less on the negative aspect of the trauma rather, it focuses on the positives of the specific person, and how this trauma changed them in a better way.
The problem with the Trauma-Informed care approach is highlighted further when Ginwright talks about his time leading a healing circle for a group of young African American men. Here he tried to take a trauma-informed approach and when the men talked about their struggles and things they went through, Ginwright told them about how this trauma will affect them, and how to deal with the stress these things will bring. That is when one of the members of the circle tole him that he was more then his trauma. He did not need pity or to be told that this trauma was going to hold him down. This highlights the main problem with this approach. What the trauma-informed care approach does is label these people who have gone through an emotional experience. It tells them they they cant help the fact that they will have problems going forward, and how to move on from these problems. It is clear that this approach is not helpful because it pins them down of a victim of their situation, rather then a person of their own.
Comments - The part I found most interesting is his correlation to the Aids Epidemic. Similar to Trauma-Informed care, the Aids epidemic found a large group of people being stigmatized and generalized. It dehumanized gay men, as they were blamed for the cause and spread of the disease. terms like “gay-related immune deficiency” were created, and these people were put under an umbrella that defined them. You can see this with the trauma-informed approach because it almost does the same thing. In an effort to help people that have dealt with a traumatic experience, they are labeled and put under an umbrella against their own will. they are dehumanized, and made a victim weather they want to be labeled as that or not. In both cases, these groups of people are not being seen for the people they are themselves, rather they are seen as a consequence of actions that were not their fault in the first place.
HyperLinks - https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/problems-disorders/coping-after-a-traumatic-event
