Why create trauma and relationally informed and infused communities?

In preparation for Mental Health Today Live, a three week, FREE nine-webinar online event for professionals invested in improving the accessibility of services and innovating practice. One speaker at the event, Jen Daffin, provides her insights into the role of public policy and communities in breaking the transgenerational cycle of psychosocial trauma.

When we understand that our mental ill-health is largely caused by nervous system dysregulation from prolonged and transgenerational exposure to toxic stress, then addressing these problems becomes is less about better access to mental health services and more about creating the right circumstances to help people heal from but importantly reduce our exposure to these harmful circumstances in the first place. The impact of adversity and trauma is the major public health concern of our time.?

Our mental health is primarily determined by the conditions in which we are born, grow, work, live, and age, along with the broader set of forces shaping the conditions of our daily lives (WHO, 2014). There is a causal relationship between poverty and mental difficulties, and people living in poverty will be disproportionally impacted (Ridley et al., 2020).

?No man is an island: our communities have an integral contextual role in our mental health

?Recognising the role that our social circumstances play in shaping our emotional health involves understanding that it’s about what’s happened or is happening to us and not about what’s wrong with us (Johnstone et al., 2018, Perry & Winfrey, 2021). Multiple studies have found that levels of violence, crime, education, psychological distress, and various health problems are associated with place-based characteristics, particularly poverty (Eyerman et al., 2004; Thesnaar et al., 2013; Veerman & Ganzevoort, 2001).

?The stresses of living with inadequate access to economic and educational opportunities, or a lack of opportunity itself, contribute to experiences of community-level adversity. Trauma is, therefore, equally created by political, social and cultural processes when, for example, people and communities aren’t able to have their basic emotional, and physical needs met and are unable to live in safety and are disconnected from each other (WHO, 2014; Compton et al., 2020).

?Support our communities through policy informed by psychosocial health

There are specific ways in which individual and community trauma impacts our psychosocial and emotional health. These can be summarised as prolonged exposure to humiliation, shame, fear, distrust, instability, insecurity, isolation, loneliness and being trapped and powerless (Psychologists for Social Change, 2015). Chronic exposure to these is detrimental to our physical and emotional health. A focus solely on the treatment of individuals can therefore only ever be one part of the solution to supporting people to flourish and overcome poor mental health and poverty.

?To reduce the damaging psychosocial costs that contribute to the transgenerational cycles of trauma and poverty, we must shape our public policy and services to support our communities to ensure the critical indicators of psychosocial health can be achieved. These include agency, security, connection, meaning and trust. Only then will we be able to turn the tide on the trauma and distress tsunami. ??

If you are a mental health professional or are an expert by experience this event is for you. Check out the nine-webinars which will be running from June 13th to July 1st here.