Panel Presentation:
• Reaching Beyond the Normalization of Violence: Well-Being Amid Civic Abuses and Social Stress
Panelists: Robin Freeman, Steve Rauh, Marcie Newton, and David Lotto
(120 min)

Abstract:

Throughout history, there has been the desire of people in power to conquer and hoard resources. Today, we have reached new heights with the US government’s claim to Greenland in ways that demonstrate blatant civic abuses: intimidation, stripping citizens’ rights, and making a mockery of democracy and the legal system. Simultaneously, ICE agents in Minneapolis are killing American citizens for no clear reason and with no legal repercussions. Abroad, Ukrainians are fighting for the right to continue to live as an independent nation, with their land constantly under threat of being seized. These complacent civic abuses lead to damaging stressors that undermine our social sense of well-being. Can the trauma-informed question, “What happened to these people?” rather than “What is wrong with them?” help a nation in crisis move beyond the sense of despair and acceptance of violence driven by those in power?

This panel will frame questions for an open conversation with participants on ways psychologists and psychohistorians could, for instance, introduce terms like “Civic Abuse” and “Civic Stress” to foster professional and popular conversations to increase research, policy, and shared mitigations that promote thriving psychosocial societies. Questions posed by the panel for discussion will include: Does political manipulation influence perceptions of civic abuse? How might they be corrected or informed by psychological practices? How do therapists think of stages of treatment, especially those moving towards resolution and integration, after characterizing the problems? Can these methods inform the treatment of social trauma patterns? How can peace and genocide studies move beyond descriptions of fight-or-flight responses to envision positive, shared, practical outcomes and support collaboration-based social theories, as promoted by the scientists who authored the Seville Statement on Violence (UNESCO, 1986), which states that “the same species who invented war is capable of inventing peace” (p. 5)

Keywords: civic abuse, civic stress, collective trauma, democracy, peacebuilding, psychohistory, social well-being, trauma-informed practice

Short Bios:

Steve Rauh, MSW, Co-Director of the Brower, Dellums Institute, Co-Founder of the Conference on the Fate of the Earth, therapist, and Executive Director of the Manitoba Centre for Families in Transition. Contact: .

Robin Freeman, MA, Co-Director of the David R. Brower, Ronald V. Dellums Institute for Sustainable Policy Studies, Chair emeritus, Environmental Management and Technology, Merritt College, Oakland, California. Contact: .

Marcia Anne Newton, PhD, is a lecturer and assistant director in the Program in Writing and Critical Inquiry at the University at Albany. She is also on the leadership team of the International Psychohistorical Association. She is a former Court Appointed Special Advocate for abused and neglected children in the legal system and community. Dr. Newton has published on a variety of topics in psychoanalysis, including sexual trauma and psychosis, paradoxical notions of sexuality, the creative impulse, Brexit, female suicide bombers, Trump, at-risk students, and AI. She can be reached at .

David Lotto, PhD, is a veteran psychologist, psychoanalyst, and psychohistorian who is a longtime member of the Psychohistory Forum. He practices psychotherapy in Western Massachusetts, edits The Journal of Psychohistory, and may be reached at .