Black Achievement Month

Healing & intergenerational trauma

What if the story of your family is interrupted? For example, due to war, having to flee or during slavery? What can the consequences be and how can we as a society deal with this in a better way? By paying attention to the generational perspective, you can make trauma negotiable. This helps to give meaning to the past and it helps to change the present. In honour of Black Achievement Month, the Tropenmuseum organised a programme about passed-on trauma and its healing.

It was a warm, atmospheric evening led by psychiatrist Glenn Helberg. Participants ritually washed their hands with shaman Petra Nelstein and visited the exhibition Healing Power. A broad palette of insights from psychiatry, spirituality and creativity was presented. Glenn Helberg spoke to various experts with years of experience in treating trauma: psychologist Gil Yitshaki, psychiatrist Forugh Karimi, family therapist Kitlyn Tjin A Dije. Subsequently, 'narrative changers': curator Wendeline Flores, artist Richard Kofi and natural healer Desta Deekman spoke too. Together with OTION, Desta gave performances with poems and a prayer for the ancestors.