San Diego, CA – June 13, 2023 – Cognella Academic Publishing is proud to announce the publication of Collective Trauma and Human Suffering: Energizing Systemic Change through Collective Healing Action by Bruce St. Thomas, Marie Sheffield, and Paul Johnson. The text provides readers with a compassionate and research-based framework for collective healing in an increasingly fragmented world.

Today, over half of the world’s children do not have access to healthy development. Collective healing infuses greater levels of human acceptance, compassion, communication, and love into the systems raising the future, our children.

“Children recovering from trauma, war, persecution, and terrorism, tell us over and over again how much the systems of oppression need to change for healing to occur. In fact, they communicate that the first step in healing is not so much about revealing the darkest traumatic memories. The greatest healing, they report, is having a sense of belonging in the community (St. Thomas, Sheffield & Johnson, 2024, p.150)”.

Collective Trauma and Human Suffering provides readers with a compassionate and research-based framework for practicing ways to heal an increasingly fragmented world. Dr. Bruce St. Thomas, Marie Sheffield, MA, and Dr. Paul Johnson, provide an historical overview on the history of humanity, the effects of prolonged collective trauma and ways to start imagining collective wellbeing within humanity and the natural world.

As discussed in chapter five, St. Thomas, Sheffield and Johnson describe pathways of uncovering human resilience, in a community, that grows through the re-establishment of balanced and supportive networks. Like the trees in the forest that recover after a fire, new life and healing permeates through natural systems rooted in interdependence. 

This book is published by Cognella Academic Publishing in collaboration with Bridge to Belong L.L.C., a diverse team of multidisciplinary and intercultural professionals focused on reconnecting and expanding hope and compassion into community systems as it relates to collective trauma and its recovery.

Learn more about the book, request a digital review copy, or purchase the text: https://titles.cognella.com/collective-trauma-and-human-suffering-9781793567833

About the Authors

Bruce St. Thomas is a child and family psychotherapist, art therapist, and consultant/educator. He has spent over 40 years specializing in complex loss, intergenerational trauma, collective trauma, and collective healing frameworks in both private practice and community-based programs.

Marie Sheffield is an art therapist, Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, and adjunct professor at the University of Southern Maine. She has spent the last two decades working at the Center for Grieving Children in the field of complex and collective trauma with children and families. Currently, she and St. Thomas are creating Bridge to Belong (bridge2belong.com), a consulting collaborative focused on infusing collective healing action into the world.

Paul Johnson is a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Southern Maine. Previously, he taught at Lehman College, part of the CUNY system. His teaching expertise includes social work practice, social welfare policy, research, fieldwork and group work.