How To Deal With Grief and Trauma
You can't go through life without experiencing loss and trauma the question is how do we deal and live with the grief and pain? Join Nathalie Himmelrich, grief expert and author, talking to people who have experienced grief and trauma first-hand. If you want to be inspired by others who traveled through their grief and trauma, found that healing is possible, and came out the other end knowing they can survive and thrive in life after loss. For more info: www.nathaliehimmelrich.com
How To Deal With Grief and Trauma
184 Collective Grief and War Trauma: How Entire Populations Heal | Dr Imke Hansen
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What happens when an entire nation is traumatised? How does collective grief differ from personal loss, and what does healing actually look like at that scale?
In this episode, I speak with Dr Imke Hansen, trauma therapist, scholar of Eastern European History, and Deputy Director of the human rights organisation Libereco – Partnership for Human Rights. Nathalie and Imke first met in Zürich at a conference on collective grief and trauma with Dr Peter Levine and Thomas Hübl, and this conversation picks up where that encounter left off.
Imke has worked with survivors of war and persecution for over two decades. Since 2014, she has led Libereco's psychosocial support work in Ukraine, supporting people living through one of the most devastating conflicts of our time. She is also a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, a body-based approach to trauma healing developed by Dr Peter Levine.
In this episode, we cover:
- What collective grief looks like on the ground in Ukraine — and what most people in the West don't see
- The difference between individual grief and collective trauma, and why that distinction matters for healing
- What "resilience" really means — and when the word gets in the way
- What it means to witness collective suffering in a way that helps rather than harms
About today's guest
Dr. Imke Hansen holds a doctorate in Eastern European History and is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner specialising in trauma-informed mental health and psychosocial support for civil society activists and survivors of captivity and torture. She serves as Deputy Director of Libereco – Partnership for Human Rights, an independent German-Swiss NGO working in Belarus and Ukraine since 2009. She is the author of the comic book I CAN, available in English, Ukrainian, and Russian.
Resources mentioned:
- Libereco – Partnership for Human Rights: libereco.org
- Comic book I CAN by Dr Imke Hansen — free download in English, Ukrainian, and Russian via Libereco's website
- Somatic Experiencing International: somaticexperiencing.com
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