For an international trauma conference, I traveled to South Korea. I spent a day in Seoul, an immense world city that presented itself to me as a chain of shopping malls, the beauty industry, and K-pop. Everywhere, screens, perfectly stylized faces, rows of shops, and advertisements. Frankly, all that commercialism—I found some of it interesting. I looked at this culture, so different from what I’m used to, and found it hard to understand.
Knowledge sharing between cultures
The congress for which I had come formed a sharp contrast with that impression. It was focused on sharing knowledge about trauma, right between cultures: between Eastern and Western perspectives, between rich and poor countries, between dominant voices and voices that are less often heard.
That topic touched on something fundamental. Our current thinking about trauma is, after all, strongly shaped within a Western tradition. After the Vietnam War, the first clinical descriptions and scientific studies of trauma symptoms in veterans emerged. Starting in 1980, trauma received a name; the diagnosis posttraumatic stress disorder.
Although attention has now shifted more broadly, with a greater focus on issues such as gender, developmental trauma, and intergenerational transmission, the dominant narrative remains largely written in a Western language, with Western concepts as its starting point. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is limited.
The role of language
What kept me occupied during this congress was the role of language in how we perceive the consequences of climate change. traumatic experiences Understanding. Language is necessary: we need words to share experiences, to conduct research, to organize care. At the same time, language always forces us to view things from a certain perspective. It frames, organizes, and selects. It influences the questions we ask and the behaviors we observe.
In this way, language also limits our thinking, and perhaps even more importantly: our ability to truly understand the other. Especially when someone has a different cultural background, looks at the world in a different way, and therefore speaks a different language, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively.
If we are not aware of how we use our words, we are not really listening. Then we do not hear the other person’s story in its own context, but try to translate it into our familiar categories. In doing so, we fail to truly acknowledge the other person’s testimony, when in fact it holds a valuable perspective. If we do not truly hear the other person, we are doing the other person a disservice. And ultimately, we are also failing ourselves.
Learning from other perspectives
I was deeply impressed by professionals working in places where people face severe and complex trauma, while resources are scarce. Sometimes there are only a few therapy sessions available per person. Yet they saw an opportunity to bring meaningful changes to people’s lives by working from the community. Not by speaking in terms of PTSD diagnoses and evidence-based treatments, but by using a language of resilience, recovery, and connection.
That made me think about our own context. In the Netherlands, where the demand for care seems to be increasing and waiting times are rising, we might learn something from this. Isn’t it time to enrich ourselves with other perspectives? To consider testimonials from others, even when they don’t fit within our own cultural framework, as valuable and reliable? And to allow those stories to serve as guides in better understanding what it means worldwide to live with and after a traumatic experience?
Look at the other side
On that free day in Seoul, I sought refuge in the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. If I find something soothing, it’s an almost deserted museum hall bathed in natural light. And if I find something intriguing, it’s a monumental installation by a contemporary artist that forces you to pause and take another look.
In this museum, I saw artists depict a quest for identity. After the Cold War and decades of authoritarian rule, existing values around culture, community, and ideology came under pressure. In a country where thinking had been restricted for generations, Western influences suddenly burst forth. A vacuum was filled with consumerism, individualism, and freedom. But who are you, as a country, as a community, as an individual?
The perspectives of these artists gave me words and images. I needed that language to understand the story that was lived in this society. And precisely because of that, my perspective began to shift. When I left the museum and walked back into the city, I looked differently at the world around me.
Elisa van Ee is a clinical psychologist, systemic therapist and full professor of Psychotraumatology in a developmental perspective at Radboud University. She is also a board member of the Traumanet foundation. Elisa has written two books: Can I stay with you? en I still need to process it.
