MENTAL HEALTH AFTER TRAUMA: INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE DIMENSIONS

Abstract

The aim: The article is devoted to uncovering the essence of the trauma, identifying the cause of its formation, and investigating the consequences for the person and the community. Materials and methods: The methodological basis of the given study is the interdisciplinary and hermeneutic approach, which was used in combination with the methods of retrospective, analysis, synthesis, and extrapolation, as well as the methodological apparatus of memory studies with its inherent intention of the problem of group identity formation. A prominent place in the process of writing the work played the method of critical literature review. Sources reflecting research on individual and collective dimensions of trauma were found in PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar. Research articles were found using the keywords “trauma”, “traumatic experience”, “victim”, “violence”, “collective trauma”, “cultural trauma”, “memory”, etc. Conclusions: Modern studies of traumatic experience are inextricably linked with the scientific work of Sigmund Freud, who was one of the first to explicate trauma as a destroyer of “protection”. This gave reason to modern researchers to consider it an emotional reaction of the psyche to mental, physical, or cultural violence directed against the identity of an individual or an entire community. Whether inflicted on an individual or a community as a whole, trauma invariably seeks testimony in order to produce meanings and mechanisms capable of preventing violence and preserving the mental health of both the individual and the community as a whole.