Public discussion "National traumas: how does it effects on the lives of contemporaries, and is there the way of healing?"
When: On Sunday, 3 June, 2018, at 12:00 p.m.
Where: The National Museum «Holodomor Victims Memorial»
Discussion participants:
Cathy Caruth (historian, culturologist, author of the book «Listening to Trauma», Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters at Cornell University (USA)
Vitaliy Klymchuk (Ph.D. in Psychological Sciences, leading researcher of the Institute of Social and Political Psychology of National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine, Director of the Mental Health Solutions)
Victoriya Gorbunova (Ph.D. in Psychological Sciences, Head of the Department of Clinical Psychology (Ukrainian Catholic University)
Moderator: Larysa Voloshina (psychologist, journalist (UA: Crimea)
In the scientific and informational space quite often there are theses that the Ukrainian society is a post-genocidal one. The pain and trauma of the Holodomor are not fully articulated and not comprehended, and the consequences are reflected in our behavior, habits, attitudes, beliefs. In 2017, Ukrainian scientists and psychotherapists Vitaliy Klymchuk and Viktoriya Gorbunova undertook to study this issue by implementing the project named «Holodomor 33: Break the silence». It is about exploring the psychological consequences of a transgenerational trauma on an example of the Holodomor. The researchers will discuss the results of the study during the meeting with Cathy Caruth. She is the author of a number of books about trauma, one of which named “Listening to trauma” has recently published in the Kyiv publishing house “Spirit and Letter”, with the support of the United States Embassy in Ukraine.
Cathy Caruth will share her thoughts and observations about the theory of healing, the emergence and awareness of trauma in our culture and its long-term impact on the human attitude to pain and understanding of the world. In her new book “Listening to trauma” interviews with innovators were collected: about the theory of trauma, clinical or active interventions to trauma, or the creation and modification the institutions that provide therapeutic, artistic or legal assistance as a response to traumatic events.
During the discussion, we will talk about the evidence as a way to overcome the trauma, the meaning of giving testimony, which is part of the process of recovery, the responsibility of the descendants of those who were traumatized by the Holodomor. Indeed, in Ukrainian historical science today there is a contemptuous attitude towards ethnology as a science, and the “oral history”, which in the world is at a rather high level. It is often perceived skeptical, saying that an eyewitness testimony can not be an objective source of information through its distinction between evaluative judgments and facts.
The co-organizer of the discussion is the US Embassy in Ukraine.
Tel.: (044) 254- 45- 12
E-mail: [email protected]