Multilevel Connection as a Pathway to Healing in a Low-income South African Community

Abstract

Combined forces of colonialism, tribalism and apartheid were influential, powerful and controlling legislators behind the continued cycle of violence in South Africa. The capacity for healing in the face of ongoing adversity has received growing attention in contexts of historical trauma and the developing world where an understanding of the cultural and historical past is crucial to healing. Notwithstanding, the parallel significance of multilevel and multidimensional connection as central to the process of healing trauma individually and collectively within the context of ongoing violence requires further exploration. This qualitative narrative study consisted of 18 in-depth individual interviews and two follow-up focus groups with women lay counsellors. Women’s narratives were subjected to narrative analysis. Themes reflect counsellors’ healing journeys in the context of historical and continuous trauma and demonstrate elements of connection which facilitate or hinder the process of healing in this community. Findings suggest that participants viewed the worth of multilevel connection to their internal worlds and the world around them as critical to their healing—without the element of connection, healing does not occur and the cycle of disconnection and violence continues.