Social Healing as an Emerging Field
Social healingis an evolving paradigm that seeks to transcend dysfunctional polarities that hold
repetitive wounding in place. It views human transgressions not as a battle between the dualities
of right and wrong or good and bad, but as an issue of wounding and healing. Thus a key
question driving the work of social healing is how do individuals, groups and nations heal from past
and present wounds?
Our view of social healing assumes a relatedness between individual and collective wounding and
healing. Unresolved historical wounds carried in the collective memory and collective
unconscious can, and do, trigger a complex array of conflicts. This transference from generation
to generation of victim-perpetrator dynamics often result in violent confrontation, war,
oppression, human rights abuses and terrorism.
This emerging field has many intersecting aspects and our exploration has been dialogic and
multi-disciplinary, including these areas:
•Worldview framing and analysis;
•Theory and practice of dialogue;