Transgression binds victims and perpetrators together and the entanglement may impact our sense of safety, identity, freedom and belonging. What is the residual impact of victimisation and perpetration upon our emotional, mental and physical being? How does ancestral V-P dynamics continue to impact future generations? And, what steps can we take as individuals and communities, to reconcile trauma that might hold us in a state of stasis/reaction? This lab explored what it takes to shed light on the entangled past alive in us today, then taking initial steps forward with a coherent and compassionate response.
Whoever was committed to explore truthfully how victimisation and perpetration dynamics are alive in them personally, trans-generationally and collectively. Our lab focused on participants’ felt experience, rather than on theoretical discussions or analysis of current conflict situations. Participants were expected to bring personal resources to this exploration and/or to seek support outside of the group session if and when needed. It was not recommended for people going through current emergency situations since a certain level of safety was required to be able to touch these wounds. In electing our participants, we considered diversity of backgrounds, countries, cultures and genders.
Over a 12-month journey, we explored aspects of victimisation, perpetration and the dynamic between the two within personal, intergenerational and collective spheres. Through building a strong container, harvesting resilience, skill development, meditation practices, somatic experiences and compassionate presence, individual and group awareness has increased, focusing on witnessing and space holding capacities. Poetry, music, movie clips and other artistic expressions served as added inspiration. Small group interactions were quintessential for sharing personal histories and experiences which in turn, increased intimacy & trust, stimulated learning and inspired hope. In the latter part of the year, sessions focused on acceptance, integration, post traumatic growth & healing. <br /> <br /> We started out with a group of 43 participants and completed with 39 participants. We met for 12 group sessions from January- December 2024.<br /> In addition, we added two, 90 min integration sessions toward the second half of the year.
Building & sustaining the container, we:
Set clear boundaries of time, presence, discretion & communication.
Clarify intentions & motivation: What drew you to be here? What are you passionate about in regard to this topic? What might trigger you? What question are you walking?
Practiced WE space: Awareness of diversity and uniqueness in the room, harnessing the power of witnessing, bringing heartfelt presence to what is happening, welcoming what is challenging, noticing when we look away, and bearing witness to what arises within. Becoming aware of and accepting holding capacity in the moment.
Explored different layers of safety. What are some assumptions about safety? Difference between feeling safe and feeling comfortable, relationship of safety to risk, making space for expressing not feeling safe, how can you increase safety?
Introduced & practiced basic competences - 3-sync, self- and co-regulation, meditation & mindfulness, conscious breathing, etc.
Accessing sources of resilience while also presencing defence mechanisms (disconnects, shut down, avoidance, over-efforting, burnt out etc).
Introduced and explored individual, ancestral & collective resources and resilience. Self & co-regulation. What sustains you – family, lineage, land, belonging, gifts, ancestral intelligence? Also, community & cultural resources. How do you want to invest to strengthen your resilience or broadening available resources?
What might you contribute to this group from your essence?
Of the 80+ people who signed up for our lab, we went through a scrupulous and mindful selection process, focusing on diversity of cultures, religions, countries, trauma landscapes, gender, professional backgrounds, etc. This contributed greatly to hosting participants' personal wounds through the context of a collective, archetypal phenomenon.
Acknowledging that some participants were living through major collective trauma events right now, while others were relatively safe and had a reflective capacity, and outlining guidelines for these distinctions, allowed for clearer boundaries and fostered a safer container and quality of witnessing.
Also, really easing into it while building the container, deepening competencies, and resourcing ourselves for the journey, we set up the V-P context as a universal principle and a collective phenomenon before entering into the trauma landscape itself.
We then began to explore: What is alive in you while we bring this up? How do you experience the group? What are your motivations for joining this lab? and how does this relate to your personal history with P-V dynamics? What is the residue, the imprint, the impact of these dynamics on your spiritual, emotional, mental, physical body? Share from the present moment what is relevant and urgent to speak to and pay attention to your body, feelings, thoughts, fears and aspirations.
We introduced the nature of V-P dynamics as an archetypal energy while tapping into specific narratives from participants' own lives, families, lineages & cultures.
In retrospect, we followed a basic Jungian psychotherapeutic approach - creating a wide perspective through deep connection to the Collective Unconscious and that which is common to all humans, while exploring inner layers within the self, including paying attention to fragmentation, dissociation, denial, resistance, grief, anger, resentment, confusion and othering.
One participant expressed that the dynamic felt sticky, muddy, confusing & seductive. So we found it meaningful to look more deeply into the heart of the wound, by introducing the Victim-Perpetrator-Rescuer Triangle as a compass.
The model pours light on conditions and early childhood programming leading to these roles and why they are so interconnected. It highlights how at the base of all 3, is an identification with the victim and why our starting-gate position on the triangle, becomes a strong part of our identity.
In triads participants shared their own stories; how this resonated for them; their own start gate; exploring new insights. What does it take to go beyond what we have been conditioned to? was a question we continued to explore together.
A strong desire to understand the nature of entanglement; what creates and perpetuates suffering and what constitutes healing, were inquiries raised often in our group sharing.
In one session, we split the group into two groups, each with one of us facilitating allowing for more intimacy for sharing, then bringing the voices back into the main room.
The following session, we introduced a “resonating” practice, exploring patterns of loyalty and allegiance to ancestors through representatives.
“The Client” was invited to take time to contemplate their family history and intergenerational dynamic they feel impacted by. Then assign 3 roles to 3 people:
[1]To resonate the ancestral entanglement as “the issue”
[2]To resonate the victim energy aspect of the issue
[3]To resonate the perpetrator energy aspect of the issue
We demonstrated this and then participants explored this in groups of 4.
This was a very powerful, mind-bypass and profoundly insightful experience for them.
We also incorporated Meditation, prayer, poems, music, movie clips and song. Creating deeply-sensed energetic connections and deepening into shared experiences while honoring both descendants of victims and of perpetrators among us.
The intense attraction between victims and perpetrators is impossible to describe but was evidently present through personal testimonies. Something of the perpetrator’s life force/future, is with the victim and something of the victim’s life force/future, is with the perpetrator and each yearns to be whole again.
Throughout our lab, we noticed a fascination with entanglement and needing it to be resolved…. We addressed it in many ways and also gave personal examples.
Ethical Violation and Reparation: Lysan of the delicate reparation process going on in the Netherlands regarding the Dutch role in the West Indies slave trade
Disentanglement: Michal of her experience at Villa Wannsee which seemed related to the sense that the perpetrator(Germany), created this exhibition for the sake of their own healing, rather than as a response to guilt. As a representative of the victim (Jewish)collective, Michal had a visceral experience of release from the entanglement.
We allowed for dialogue and invited everyone to stay soft and present. These conversations continued to reverberate and participants explored it in their ongoing triads. We walked with the question: Can we sense the broader spectrum of generations going through trauma and taking the roles of victims and perpetrators as part of the human condition? As part of their survival?
An underlying tension still present in our lab of wanting to get rid of the entanglement, wanting to figure it out so I can fix it, was clearly a trauma symptom. A conflict around a spiritual imperative some felt, to forgive the perpetrator, mixed with feelings of guilt, shame & anger, was also floating around. More details given in the “Insights” section of the report,
Meta-Reflection: We spent part of the last 3 sessions, presencing this through conversations, examples, inspirations, contemplations, introducing the restorative power of the Creative Tension model, practicing GSW, prayer, ceremony, and harvesting our accumulated personal & group resources.
Gathering Gems:
Appreciation of differences and similarities in our culturally and geographically diverse stories, a deeper empathetic response to our shared humanity and the impacts of collective trauma across ancestral lines.
Reconciling with one’s ancestors and/or ancestral heritage; honoring/accepting it without guilt and/or the need to fix it.
Appreciating what we have learned from our wounds
Increased capacity to hold space for both victims & perpetrators - not the same as forgiving acts of atrocities and/or a release from responsibility
Willingness to hold the tension, to allow the remedy to appear… trusting the emerging movement to unfold its own intelligence?
Continue to walking our questions until we become the answer through our embodiment; agents of change
I learned so much about myself and about how the unconscious works to hold shadows down. I also learned a lot about how communities do this, and what the processes of restorative justice can look like, and how much awareness has to go into that.
One of my insights is the embodied understanding and realisation of the impact of trauma on my system. As safety was created in the group, the nervous system could begin to relax and ‘we’ the people, could begin to show up with our stories, realisations, experiences and greater understanding of the traumas…that may have ‘driven us’ for years and potentially generations.
I have come to hold the perpetration created by my people with an acceptance and an ability to be with it and allow it to move through.
It's also become clear to me how hard it is for people to access the pain of perpetration, and how hard it is for others to witness the pain of perpetration in a lineage.
The experience of the lab confirmed my belief in healing on a collective basis. The fact we can do it on a global basis via zoom seems miraculous and inspiring. my capacity for awareness and inclusion within myself and others of both victim and perpetrator energy is far far greater.
My capacity to choose, other than acting this out, was enhanced and been most beneficial in my life. As well, as I include and expand my awareness of the transgenerational victim/perpetrator dynamics, there is more understanding and compassion for my ancestors and myself.
Crisis Trauma Relief
Trauma-Informed Practice
Collective Trauma Integration
Community of Practice
Raising Awareness
Overview
What we do
Who we are
Підпишіться на наші інформаційні листи. Допоможіть нам зцілювати колективну травму та зменшувати негативні ефекти для нашої глобальної культури.
Michal Gaia Golan 
English