Handbook for Strategic HR

CHAPTER 33

Trauma and Healing in Organizations

Pat Vivian and Shana Hormann

THE NATURE of an organization’s work directly impacts the culture of the organization. An organization that provides services to traumatized individuals, families and/or communities is susceptible to becoming a traumatized system experiencing the cumulative effects of the work itself. Although the problems are often viewed as interpersonal or intra-personal, ones that could be addressed through better communication or clarity of roles and expectations, in fact they are deeper, embedded within the organization’s system.

Our ideas are based on almost thirty years of experience as managers and consultants with “highly mission-driven” nonprofit organizations across the United ...