University of Newcastle, Australia.
University of NSW, Australia.
Child Abuse Negl. 2020 Jan;99:104232. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104232. Epub 2019 Nov 8.
This article examines how particular understandings of trauma as a systemic form of psychosocial harm framed the establishment of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, informed its successful investigatory process, and shaped its recommendations and outcomes. In so doing, the Royal Commission makes an important contribution to the field of trauma studies, which has been characterized by contested histories and is subject to continuing debate in clinical and academic research. For much of the twentieth century, trauma and its impacts have been typically articulated through a bio-medical discourse of individual harm and health outcomes. We argue that the establishment of the Royal Commission reflected an expanded understanding of trauma, constitutive of moral, political and psychological arenas as evidenced in its methodology, conceptual approach and treatment of survivor testimony. We also argue that the institutionalization of an historically situated and politically engaged approach to trauma within the Royal Commission itself was effective in contesting narrow psychological or juridical concepts of harm by developing approaches to trauma as a system of harm with complex impacts on families, communities and indeed the nation. We evaluate the implications and consequences of this shift in the work of the Royal Commission, with particular attention to the development of an interdisciplinary relational approach to the study of trauma as a key principle in the emergence of a trauma-informed culture.
本文考察了对创伤的特定理解如何将其框定为一种系统性的心理社会伤害形式，从而为澳大利亚皇家委员会对机构应对儿童性虐待的调查提供了依据，影响了其成功的调查过程，并塑造了其建议和结果。这样，皇家委员会为创伤研究领域做出了重要贡献，该领域的历史一直存在争议，在临床和学术研究中也不断受到争论。在二十世纪的大部分时间里，创伤及其影响通常通过个体伤害和健康结果的生物医学话语来表达。我们认为，皇家委员会的成立反映了对创伤的理解的扩大，这种理解构成了道德、政治和心理领域的基础，这在其方法、概念方法和对幸存者证词的处理中都有所体现。我们还认为，在皇家委员会内部将一种具有历史背景和政治参与的创伤处理方法制度化，通过将创伤作为一种具有复杂影响的伤害系统的方法来应对狭隘的心理或法律伤害概念，是有效的。我们评估了皇家委员会工作中的这一转变所带来的影响和后果，特别关注发展一种跨学科的关系方法来研究创伤，这是创伤知情文化出现的关键原则。
