In response to the sad reality that there are people in many different countries who are currently living with the effects of profound trauma, we are initiating a new project in which we invite your involvement. How can we as counsellors and community workers contribute to responding to trauma including the trauma of natural disaster, war, occupation, terror, political violence and torture?

It’s clear that so many of us, wherever we may live, are devastated by the images we are witnessing via the media and wish to be connected with others in some positive way about these. We are receiving emails that are indicating that therapists, even from vastly different perspectives and opinions, are wanting to find someway to contribute to healing around these issues at this time. It's our hope that this project may provide some sort of forum for this.

Over the years we have been linked with many different projects and responses to trauma and have published various pieces on these themes which relate to experiences of trauma in South Africa, the Bali bombing, refugee experiences, and intergenerational trauma in relation to the Holocaust. Most recently, we have been profoundly saddened by the devastation caused by the tsunamis in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India and the Maldives, and the hurricanes in the USA and have been trying to think through how to respond. Along with donating funds to relief and aid organisations, what can we as therapists, counsellors and community workers offer at these times?

We have also visited a range of trauma centres, including the Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture and Trauma in Ramallah, in the occupied Palestinian territories. We have formed an ongoing connection with this organisation and several of our workers have recently been back to visit.

We have also been in touch with colleagues in Israel who are working with family members of those who have been killed in terror attacks and in coming months we will be trying to visit other Trauma Centres in various parts of the world. At the same time we are building upon local links with organizations here in Adelaide that work with refugees who have survived trauma and torture. We hope this project will facilitate links between workers in different countries who are responding to these sorts of issues. Already we have been in touch with workers in Australia, South Africa, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and the USA.

We are also trying to publish papers relevant to therapists working with trauma. Just last month, one of our team, David Denborough, participated in and documented a 'Healing of Memories' gathering on Robben Island, South Africa, which involved participants from many places coming together to explore ways of responding to histories of trauma in their own countries. A write up of this gathering is included in the upcoming issue of the International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work.