Knowing and Not Knowing About the Climate Crisis: Through the Lens of Trauma and Dissociation
Massive traumatic experiences often render our emotional and cognitive capacities ineffective and make it difficult to make sense of what is happening to us. My late friend Dr. Dori Laub described in his seminal paper, “Knowing and Not Knowing Massive Psychic Trauma” (1993), the various levels by which we distance, deny and avoid knowledge of trauma.
My co-chair and I have chosen Laub’s concept, applied to the issues of climate change and our attitudes to this impending crisis, to be the focus of the annual meeting of the Trauma Work Group at the NGO on Mental Health in the United Nations this year. The meeting will be held via Zoom on Feb. 24 from 2-4 pm EST, and is open to the public. To register, please follow the link by clicking on the image of the flyer below.
Irit Felsen
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