Creating Sanctuary: Toward The Evolution Of Sane Societies

Psychiatrist Sandra Bloom interweaves the individual and the social, the personal and the political, by presenting the story of how she and a group of colleagues created a unique psychiatric milieu based on social psychiatric principles. Illustrated with case studies of patients in treatment, this study goes beyond treating individuals, couples, and families to treating groups and social organizations.

-- Illustrated with case studies of patients in treatment
-- The first study that goes beyond treating individuals, couples and families to treating groups and social organizations
-- Deepens our understanding of childhood trauma by focusing on the theory that social wounds require social healing.

Through the lens of a personal narrative, Creating Sanctuary makes some broadly challenging statements about human nature and social organization.

Psychiatrist Sandra Bloom interweaves the individual and the social, the personal and the political, by presenting the story of how she and a group of colleagues created a unique psychiatric milieu based on social psychiatric principles. Opening the book with the vivid story of Dawn, a severely traumatized young adult, Bloom recounts how she and her staff employed a new approach when asking patients questions: What's wrong with you? became What happened to you?

Through this shift in emphasis, Bloom allowed traumatized individuals to move beyond self-blame into a more communal relationship that shared responsibility for sickness and healing. Bloom argues that unresolved, multigenerational, often forgotten traumatic experience leads to a compulsion to repeat that is an exceedingly powerful force in individual and social history. Because of this unresolved legacy of trauma passed on from parent to child, Bloom contends our societal systems are trauma-organized, producing institutions which are unresponsive to and often directly counter to human needs.

Bloom applies the insights from The Sanctuary model to a multitude of social institutions, ranging from families, schools, and the justice system to business, government, and the arts.