REGISTER | Collective Trauma: The Social Construction and Destruction of Meaning Study Group

Houston Psychoanalytic Society

Study Group

Collective Trauma:

The Social Construction and Destruction of Meaning

Facilitated by

JoAnn Ponder, PhD & Karen Campbell-Liput, PhD, LCSW

in memory of Stewart Twemlow, MD

8 Tuesdays

April 9 - May 28, 2024

7:00 PM - 8:30 PM Central Time

Live via Zoom

*Pre-Registration required for Zoom invitation

The sessions will not be recorded

Registration Fees

HPS Full Members: $240

HPS Student Members: $160

Non-members: $280

12 CME/CEU/CE Credits

Instructional Level: Intermediate

In 1972, a mining company’s dam in West Virginia burst, flooding Buffalo Creek. The floods caused mass destruction of homes and property in the area, thereby displacing people in its close-knit rural communities. After observing the destruction and interviewing residents, sociologist Kai Erikson coined the term “collective trauma” to describe the disaster. His study is detailed in his award-winning book, Everything in Its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo Creek Flood, published in 1978. While there is some overlap between personal trauma and collective trauma, there are important distinctions as well. In this study group, we will discuss various forms of community trauma in addition to the Buffalo Creek flood, including hurricanes, shootings at schools, race-related oppression and violence, and the COVID pandemic. We will look at these crises through a psychoanalytic lens to explore the characteristics of collective trauma, how it affects communities, how it differs from personal trauma regarding memory processes, etc., cultural and historical contributions, and related issues such as shared client-therapist trauma. We also consider interventions that psychoanalysts have employed to help communities heal. In addition to readings for each type of collective trauma, we recommend films that help to illustrate or address some of the traumas and issues.

The study group will be limited to 16 registrants so they have ample opportunity to discuss the issues and share their own examples. The assigned articles will be pre-circulated for each group meeting, but participants are responsible for accessing the recommended films if they choose to watch them. Participants should have a basic grasp of psychoanalytic theory and be willing to commit to completing the reading assignments and attending the study group regularly. We look forward to lively and engaging discussions!

OBJECTIVES

1a) Define collective trauma.

1b) Describe human contributions to the Buffalo Creek flood, Gulf Coast hurricanes, and climate change.

2a) Differentiate collective trauma from personal trauma.

2b) Describe shared trauma and how it can both enhance and interfere with therapeutic process.

3a) Explain how the Austin community reactions to the mass shooting at the University of Texas were indicative of collective trauma.

3b) Describe how trauma helps to explain the public’s polarized reactions to gun control.

4a) Provide how psychoanalysts can contribute to the understanding of gun violence.

4b) Describe how psychoanalytic responders attempted to be helpful following the mass school shooting in Columbine, Colorado.

5a) Describe and give rationale for the community intervention strategies that Ainslie and his students employed to heal a small Texas town from the trauma of racial oppression and school desegregation.

5b) Describe how normative unconscious processes contribute to racial oppression.

6a) Explain how psychoanalytic theory can enhance ethnographic studies.

6b) Describe how human memory processes differ in collective trauma versus personal trauma.

7a) List 3 contributions to the scant focus on cultural trauma in psychoanalysis.

7b) Explain how Black rage serves as a functional adaptation to racial trauma and oppression.

8a) Describe how COVID19 constituted a collective trauma that often triggered unremembered personal trauma.

8b) Describe how COVID19 became a shared clinician-patient collective trauma.

Facilitators

JoAnn Ponder, PhD is a psychologist-psychoanalyst in private practice in Austin, Texas. She completed her psychoanalytic training at the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies in Houston, where she previously served on the faculty. She has presented at national and international psychoanalytic conferences and led study groups on various types of collective trauma. Her publications include journal articles on the first mass school shooting in the U.S. and hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, articles which will be shared with the study group.

Karen “Kacie” Campbell-Liput, PhD, LCSW is originally from California and graduated from the University of Southern California. She lived in Thailand and Bangladesh for 13-years, specializing in community cross-cultural programs and awareness for expatriate communities. She moved to Houston in 2002 and graduated from the University of Houston in 2007 with her Master’s degree in Social Work. She received postgraduate training at Baylor College of Medicine and the Menninger Clinic in Houston. She went on to earn a PhD from the Institute of Social Work in Chicago. In addition, Kacie completed her training in adult psychoanalysis at the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies in Houston, where she currently serves on the faculty. She has a private practice in Houston.

*This study group is dedicated to the memory of Stewart Twemlow, MD, a psychiatrist-psychoanalyst and larger-than-life character from New Zealand. He came to the U.S. to train at Menninger Clinic and ended up working there for the rest of his career. When Menninger Clinic moved from Topeka, Kansas to Houston, Texas, Twemlow joined the faculty of the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies. Over the years, he taught and mentored many students and clinicians at Menninger and CFPS, including Kacie Liput and JoAnn Ponder. Twemlow is best known for his applied psychoanalytic research on school bullying and bystander effects. His legacy lives on in the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, which he helped to found in 2004.

Schedule/Syllabus/References

Apr. 9: Floods and Hurricanes

1) Erikson, K. (1998). Trauma at Buffalo Creek. Society, 35: 153-161.

2) Erikson, K. (1991) Notes on trauma and community. American Imago, 48: 455-472.

3) Ponder, J. (2019). Hurricane Harvey: Barriers to remembering, repercussions of forgetting. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 16: 121-127.

Apr. 16: Floods and Hurricanes (cont’d.)

1) Goodwin, J. M. (2019). Storm stress and the humble and perilous art of Stage Zero intervention. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 16: 128-131.

2) Boulanger, G. (2013). Fearful symmetry: Shared trauma in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 23: 31-44.

3) Boulanger, G., Floyd, L. M., Nathan, K. L., Poitevant, D. R. & Pool, E. (2013). Reports from the front: The effects of Hurricane Katrina on mental health professionals in New Orleans. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 23:15-30.

4 optional) Boulanger, G., Nathan, K., Chester, S. M., Floyd, L., Pool, E., Van Geffen, K. & the FAR Fund (2014). Shared Trauma: Psychotherapy in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. PEP Video Collection 1:5 (17 min. film).

Apr. 23: Mass Shootings at Schools

1) Ponder, J. (2018). From the Tower shootings in 1966 to Campus Carry in 2016: Collective trauma at the University of Texas at Austin. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 15: 239-252.

2 optional) Maitland, K. (Director, 2016). Tower (animated documentary film), 1 hr., 22 min. (Available from Amazon & PBS Passport).

Apr. 30: Mass Shootings at Schools (cont’d.)

1) Twemlow, S. W. (2000). The roots of violence: Converging psychoanalytic explanatory models for power struggles and violence in schools. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 69: 741-785.

2) Levy, M. A., Haglund, P., Plaut, L., Emde, R., Stewart, M., Shaw, R., Ilvonen, C., Buirski, C. K., Singer, M., Hea, R. & Edwards, W. (2004). Healing after Columbine: Reflections of psychoanalytic responders to community trauma. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 52: 759-781.

May 7: Race-Related Oppression and Violence

1) Ainslie, R. C. (2013). Intervention strategies for addressing collective trauma: Healing communities ravaged by racial strife. Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society 18: 140-152.

2) Layton, L. (2006). Racial identities, racial enactments, and normative unconscious processes. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 75: 237-269.

3 optional) Ainslie, R. C. (1999). Crossover: A Story of Desegregation (documentary film), 55 min. (Available from Dos Manos Productions, Austin, TX).

May 14: Race-Related Oppression and Violence (cont’d.)

1) Ainslie, R. & Brabeck, K. (2003). Race murder and community trauma: Psychoanalysis and ethnography in exploring the impact of the killing of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas. Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, 8: 42-50.

2) Bohleber, W. (2007). Remembrance, trauma and collective memory: The battle for memory in psychoanalysis. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 88: 329 – 352.

May 21: Race-Related Oppression and Violence (cont’d.)

1) Holmes, D. E. (2016). Culturally imposed trauma: The sleeping dog has awakened. Will psychoanalysis take heed? Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 26: 641-654.

2) Stoute, B. J. (2021). Black rage: The psychic adaptation to the trauma of oppression. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 69: 259-290.

3 optional) Layton, L. (2019). Transgenerational hauntings: Toward a social psychoanalysis and an ethic of dis-illusionment. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 29:105-121.

May 28: COVID-19

1) Kalsched, D. (2021). Intersections of personal vs. collective trauma during the COVID-19 pandemic: The hijacking of the human imagination. Journal of Analytical Psychology 66: 443-462.

2) Kuchuck, S. (2021). To a promised land: Viral dreams and collective trauma in the era of COVID-19. Psychoanalytic Perspectives, 18: 178-188.

SYLLABUS developed by JoAnn Ponder, PhD, HPS Program Chair

IMAGES of hurricane symbol, firearm scope cross-hairs, and COVID cells from Can Stock

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HPS, through co-sponsorship with the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies, also offers approved CEUs for Texas state-approved social workers, licensed professional counselors, and marriage and family therapists.