Page 33 - NAMAH-Apr-2025

A Healing Framework for Collective Trauma
Using the Partition as Case Study

Lopa Mukherjee

Abstract
This article presents a framework for healing collective wounds inflicted by some trauma in
the past. When it is a trauma passed down through generations, healing an individual is called
ancestral healing, which is an established practice in psychotherapy. When this same healing
is done on a large population the dynamics will be different, which is the core matter of this
framework. The framework starts with analysing the root causes for the wound. This sheds light on
the problem and is half the healing process. If any group or individual is identified as the aggressor
and if the wound has resulted in any intolerance for the aggressor, the framework helps the victims
work on their intolerances. As a last step conflict resolution methods are used to resolve the trauma.
In this paper the framework is applied on a real-life example to show its feasibility — the Partition
wounds on the people of the Indian subcontinent.

trauma. The trauma can be of various
kinds. It could involve a human decision
that raises vengeful sentiments in the
victims. It could be the consequence of
several factors that involve humans but
no single person can be identified as the
prime source of injustice. It could be the
trauma of refugees and internally displaced
people. The trigger could be genocide, religious
intolerance, global warming, loss of habitat,
land grabbing for public projects such as
Introduction mining. It could be border disputes between
communities. It could be a natural disaster.
This study will sketch out a framework In all these cases, there is wounding due to
for healing that addresses a collective an event in the past, perhaps generations

33