ABSTRACT
Human beings evolved over the millennia to socialize in an affirmative way with one another. When societal systems have been designed to deny the fundamental human need for connection as a biological and psychological reality, they are harmful to all. The impacts of this harm can be viewed holistically, affecting the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual potential for well-being. Efforts to heal must be grounded in this understanding and designed to address psychological needs while mitigating and not reinforcing experiences of trauma. This chapter explores the Rx Racial Healing Circle methodology as a tool for helping diverse communities within the United States address and overcome the legacy of an entrenched ideology of racial hierarchy. It explores how this circle methodology plays a central role in a broad-based local and national truth strategy and process: Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT). The TRHT process is holistic in nature and attempts to leverage the positive potential of a democratically structured society. Viable democracies depend on the capacities for effective communication and social engagement with one another that deepen abilities for empathy and compassion. Both the Rx Racial Healing methodology and the TRHT community coalitions are explored as vehicles for envisioning and actualizing a society no longer entrenched in the false ideology of a hierarchy of human value.
