Working Through Trauma: Societal and transgenerational dimensions in South Africa, the Netherlands, and Germany

2016’s summer-school at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam was held from 5 to 9 September, having trauma, trans-generational trauma, and trauma healing as the main topics of analysis, reflection, and discussion. The summer school counted with the presence of students and staff of the VU Amsterdam as well as of the University of Hamburg. Yet the diversity of the attendants – one of the most outstanding elements of the summer school – was not only given by having people coming from two different countries and universities, but by having different nationalities, cultural backgrounds, religious affiliation and non-affiliation, and scholar/professional disciplines – all the way from natural sciences to the humanities – represented.

This diversity in participation created an environment in which the questions around trauma and trauma healing were not only about “abstract theories” or by “one-dimensional” perspectives, but rather stimulated the connections between theories and different realities and contexts, and the needed exploration on different approaches (neurological, psychological, sociological, theological, etc.) to trauma and trauma healing.