All of us have been traumatized, whether individually, ancestrally, or culturally. Traumatic experiences can bring about extreme reactions which make it possible for us to survive. In just the right moment, we are mobilizing all our powers for this one action: to run away, to strike back or to play dead. We have accumulated cultural tools to process these experiences collectively, when the danger is over. However, these resources are not distributed evenly.
Not processing traumatic events allows them to repeat over and over shaping rigid identities of victims and persecutors, dominated and dominant. These un-processed trauma-fields act like black wholes and catapult you from your present interaction back to the very moment in your past when the traumatic event happened. When you passed this black whole you are reacting to this past moment with your mobilized superpowers. However, this might not be appropriate in the present situation. You will then have over-reacted or under-reacted. Which ever way, you will have terminated your relation to the present situation by being pulled into your familiar traumatic relationship-universe.
Coping resources for underprivileged groups are reduced and undermined. On top of this, privileged groups normalize their collective traumas. For example, if being “neutral” is understood to suspend empathy as ideal interpreting attitude. Privileged groups pathologize underprivileged groups by labelling them “traumatized”, implying that they are not able to make decisions for their own good etc. to legitimize their domination. In an interpreted interaction, you are part of the privileged group. In a setting such as interpreting for refugees, medical emergencies etc., your trauma fields will be activated.
As a professional interpreter, however, you can own your resources to acknowledge and to process your traumatic experienes you learn of by becoming trauma-aware. The pull of the black whole can be felt way before it sucks you in. With a daily practice (e. g. 3-sync) you can train to detect oncoming trauma-fields in yourself and others. This gives you a chance to decide what you will do in demanding settings when being “triggered”: You do not have to react in your trauma mode (figh/flight/freeze etc.) which cuts off your ability to relate. Instead, you can respond: re-establish resonance, go back to empathy and go-on interpreting multi-partially. Please remember that taking a break or even terminating the job is always an option. After a triggering interpreting job take self-care.
Becoming first a trauma-aware interpreter, then trauma-sensitive, then trauma-informed step-by-step, you can navigate your own and the other’s trauma fields and remain in relation with yourself and others. The 3-sync-trained integration of cognitive, emotional and physical perceptions enables resonance and our awareness of this resonance in the process of relating to others. This is what being present is about, a very attentive form of “listening.” Being present can protect you from vicarious (“contagious”) trauma since you can feel your early physical warnings that you are bing triggered and allow yourself to respond.
Not only trauma-fields are contagious, resonance is, too: As a trauma-informed interpreter, you will impact the triad by being present, enabling relating, thus enabling communication. Resonance is just as “contagious” (vicarious) as traumatic reactions are. Below you will find a living list of references, some with comments. I am adding literature and comments regularly. Please contact me with questions and your own comments.
General:
Levine, Peter, Ann Frederick (1993). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. North Atlantic Books.
Van der Kolk, Bessel (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin.
Alexander, Jeffrey (2012) Trauma: A social theory. Cambridge: Polity.
Herman, Judith. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. Philadelphia: Basic Books, 1992.
Arte Dokumentation: Im Gespräch mit Hartmut Rosa, Regie: Adèle Flaux, Frankreich 2023
Science and Nonduality. The Wisdom of Trauma: Companion Booklet, 2024 Übersicht über die wichtigsten Begriffe, kurz und einfach
Interpreting
Bancroft, Marjory A. et al. Healing Voices. Interpreting for Survivors of Torture, War Trauma. MCIS Language Solutions, 2022.
UNHCR Trainingshandbuch für DolmetscherInnen im Asylverfahren
Self-Care
Thomas Hübl. The 3-sync-meditation. Point of relation podcast. Spoken English and English cc, 2024
Van Dernot Lipsky and Connie Burk (2009). Trauma Stewardship. An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others. Berett-Koehler.
Treleaven, David A. (2018) Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness. Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing. Norton.
Marshall B. Rosenberg, Gewaltfreie Kommunikation: eine Sprache des Lebens. Transl: Ingrid Holler. Paderborn: Junfermann Verlag, 2016.
Ancestral Trauma
Wolynn, Mark (2017). It didn´t start with you. How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle. Penguin.
Klosin, Adam, Eduard Casas, Cristina Hidalgo-Carcedo, Tanya Vavouri, Ben Lehner (21 Apr 2017). „Transgenerational transmission of environmental information in C. elegans“. Science 356: 6335, pp. 320-323. DOI: 10.1126/science.aah6412
Collective Trauma
Reimann, Cordula and Ursula König. „Collective Trauma and Resilience: Key Concepts in Transforming War related Identities“. Berghof- Foundation, 2012. Retrieved on 7 July 2019, from https://www.berghoffoundation.org/fileadmin/redaktion/Publications/Handbook/Dialogue_Chapters/dialogue11_reimannkoenig_comm.pdf
Deaf Persons and Trauma
Anderson, Melissa et al. (2016). „A Pilot Study of deaf trauma survivors´experiences: Early traumas unique being deaf in a hearing world.“ Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma 9:4, pp. 353 – 358.
War and Trauma
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