Models of Care

Here’s a recent Facebook post of mine that generated some really important and interesting conversations:

I’m watching videos for a class I’m taking on Transforming Trauma.  Today’s video featured Dr. Shawn Ginwright, and has got me so excited that I have to type it out (quickly - thank you 9th grade typewriter class!).  

Some of his key points are this:

We have to take self care out of the realm of individualism.  The model of Trauma informed care is a medical model that sees trauma as an individual issue, that can be solved through self care.  He advocates for a Healing Centers of Care model, where trauma gets located within the larger structures affecting us.  Dr. Ginwright says that trauma is ongoing as a result of man made systems.  Healing Centers of Care asks the question “How can we heal together”?

One of the things I’ve really struggled with in becoming a healer is the question around my own trauma.  I’m not fixed.  I have pieces that I work through on a consistent basis.  I am regularly sense making my own childhood, my own unmet needs, my own physical symptoms related to emotions and unprocessed experiences.  And this is not a new journey, I’ve been working on some things for decades, and discovering which modalities work for me at different points in the journey.  Now that I’ve arrived at energy healing, I understand that I’m doing root work.  I’ve talked about it for years, but I’m letting things out of my physical body that I didn’t even realize were still there.  (And that’s a whole different writing moment!).  

Dr. Ginwright thinks that Trauma informed care “assumes that adults don’t have trauma”.  It actually perpetuates this unequal power dynamic of those who know and can help others, and those who need help.  Healing Centers of Care is about people in partnership, exchanging knowledge.  It assumes that adult providers of healing need to take seriously their own trauma, and their healing journey around it.  

He also says (and this is so major) that “healing is an ongoing process, because we live in a society that is always harming.  Healing cannot be separated from the political.  It is actually one of the most courageous acts of justice a person can do.”  

Let that sink in.  Healing is ongoing because we live in a society where harm is ongoing.  Thinking that there are those who are healed and those who need healing is mistaken.  Healing is not a matter of self care.  Healing is a societal issue. 

Well being is a right.  

Not only do we all have our own healing journeys to go on (dismantling outdated coping strategies, working with our attachment needs, getting stuck trauma out of our bodies), but as a society we have to shift our systems.  We have to move from the idea that some people have it figured out and some people don’t.  We have to notice that our systems of care are not working.  

We shuffle people around, we get stuck in bureaucracy, we see the need to heal as a weakness, we blame people for their struggles, we still fit everything into a capitalist model rather than a model of well being.  We stay in capitalism because we are all just trying to survive and not get eaten by the system and stuck in holes.  Well there are many people stuck in those holes, barely surviving, and those are the people we think need healing.  And yes, they do need healing, and so do you.   

Dr. Ginwright believes that “well being should be woven into the structure of our society”.  And I could not agree more.  Again, “healing is one of the most courageous acts of justice people can do”.  And let’s create a system that honors that. 

For the sake of personal reflection I leave you with these questions:

How are you holding up values that you don’t even stand for?  

How are you holding up values that perpetuate the idea that some people are healers and some people need healing?  

How are you contributing to a system that sees trauma as a purely individual issue rather than a systemic one?  

How are you perpetuating an idea of yourself as someone who knows the answers and doesn’t have any struggle?  (Yes, I invite you to think about instagram and facebook posts here)

How are you creating inclusive spaces where adults can be vulnerable and real about themselves?

What part will you play in your mind or in your actions, for helping to make our society filled with Healing Centers of Care?