ABSTRACT
To hold traumatic reality in consciousness requires a social context that affirms and protects the victim and joins victim and witness in a common alliance. For the individual victim, this social context is created by relationships with friends, lovers, and family. For the larger society, the social context is created by political movements that give voice to the disempowered. (Herman, 1 992, p. 7) Herman's article describes our work as Gestalt practitioners/
researchers10 in the North of Ireland from 2002-2008 (see Keenan and Burrows, 2004, 2006) . 1 1 During that time, we focused on working with groups that were involved in the lives of children. To do this we had to extend our knowledge and practice of trauma, co-facilitation, and group process. The research aspect of the work required that we devise a method to capture the practice data in order to contribute to the thinking and practice in the field of trauma support. We believed that our work would extend our knowledge and practice, as well as that of the wider field of Gestalt therapy. In this chapter, we intend to outline that learning. After describing our first meetings and the context out of which we worked-including the individual, familial, and community aspects, the war, and the aftermath of the conflict-we will focus primarily on trauma, not just as an individual event, but also as a societal response to overwhelming experiences. We will also describe the difficulties we faced as co-facilitators and members of the community. How We Came Together
When traumatic events are of human design, those who bear witness are caught in the conflict between victim and perpetrator. It is morally impossible to remain neutral in this conflict. The bystander is forced to take sides. (Herman, 1 992, p. 7) We met in an organizational development supervision group in 1 996.
involved in private practice both as psychotherapists and as consultants and trainers for community and voluntary organizations. For some years, Burrows had been manager of a parent support project in Barnardos (a large, voluntary children's organization), and Keenan had been working with community projects providing training for the early years. We came together in the Barnardos project ("Parenting in a Divided Society") in 2002 (the post-ceasefire era), with Burrows as project manager and Keenan as consultant. As parents we were, and still are, committed to helping to create a better environment for our children, for we believe that the quality of life of one child is dependent on the quality of life of others. Therefore, we believed that as a community, we needed to learn as quickly as possible about conflict-related and transgenerational trauma in order to develop effective ways of supporting people to integrate terrifying events and engage with the present.
