Healing Historical Trauma Through Traditional Culture

Dina Gilio-Whitaker ‘s review of Leslie Korn’s new book Rhythms of Recovery: Trauma, Nature, and the Body brings up an issue often ignored by health professionals – the role historical and cultural trauma can have on the emotional and physical well being of the individual.

Medicine, like politics, is often a matter of perspective; for many cultures illness is caused by being out of balance emotionally, spiritually, mentally or physically. Trauma, too, can cause imbalances that lead to physical illness by disrupting the body’s natural rhythms that maintain wellness. So argues Leslie E. Korn, author of a new book entitled “Rhythms of Recovery: Trauma, Nature, and the Body,” published and released this year by Routledge.

And, unfortunately, all too often the healthcare industry is of little help. “In my experience I observed that the physical and mental health professions are very compartmentalized in our approach to treatment. The physical health people treat the body and the mental health people treat the mind but nobody [other than those we call ‘healers’] really helps the client integrate and understand how the symptoms, the discomforts or distress that they’re experiencing are a whole [system],” Dr. Korn explains.

 In addition to integrating mental and general healthcare modalities, what distinguishes this book is its recognition of the role of culture and historical trauma. For American Indians the history of genocide and colonization has resulted in what psychologists call postcolonial stress disorder, which occurs not only on an individual but community level and often goes unacknowledged.