Toward a healthy society: when trauma affects group identity

The aim: The purpose of the article is to identify the essence and causes of collective trauma and reveal its consequences for group identity. Materials and methods: The authors used an interdisciplinary approach along with the principles of objectivity, tolerance, and impartiality. The analysis of the texts was conducted according to the basic principles of hermeneutics, namely the inexhaustibility of the authentic text and immanent critique. In addition, the method of conceptual and categorical analysis was applied, as well as induction, deduction, generalization, etc. The data collection was carried out using PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar databases. Research papers were identified according to search terms: “trauma”, “traumatic experience”, “collective trauma”, “traumatization”, “stress”, “historical trauma”, “defeat”, “the Holocaust”, etc. Conclusions: Collective trauma is a mental wound caused by the direct or indirect traumatic experience – a stressful situation that becomes a source of emotional tension due to an unexpected threat to the life of a group of people. Collective trauma occurs, on the one hand, due to the awareness of helplessness in the face of danger and, on the other hand, due to the excessiveness of traumatic experience, which turns it into the eternal present and destroys identity. Historical traumas arise in the process of conscious exploitation of traumatic experience by political or other leaders in order to achieve emotional unity and group consolidation. Without appropriate processing, they can cause antisocial behavior of the traumatized persons that manifests in seeking revenge. Social partnership can help us to avoid the negative consequences of collective trauma and achieve social consensus.