Community-based social healing, community healing, and the role of "healing leader"

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Community-based social healing, community healing, and the role of “healing leader”

Rostyslav Fanahei

MA in Cultural Studies, PhD student in Cultural Studies, researcher in the project "Contact2U"

NGO "Power of the Future", Ukraine

Summary

healing leader transformational community

The guideline of "community-based social healing" is relevant nowadays. It is based on the importance of community in supporting individual healing (treatment and maintaining wholeness) and the efficiency of civil society. The article defines that the reverse and interdependent side of working with the community - both when the community is the goal of grassroots initiatives and when it is a means of "community-based social healing" - is the need for "community healing". A special need, urgent for the healing of collective traumas, is defined as the formation ("healing") of a specific healing community, which can be called "transformative" or "processual", which is aimed at the very process of transformation. The term "healing leader" is proposed to denote the special role in external healing intervention - for a person who serves the community, supports it from within, and at the same time, must maintain an external position for permanent analysis and readjustment.

Keywords: community-based social healing, community healing, community, transformative community, hromada, healing leader.

Despite the widespread contemporary cult of individualism and unsubstantiated modern maxims about the primordial state of "war of all against all", humans have always been and are collective beings. Of course, the collective relationship that defines humans and is determined by them is historically changeable. For several centuries social sciences and social engineering were determined by the opinion that over time, a more "developed" collective relationship replaces the previous one. Recently, the history of the collective relationship started to be seen as a general complication that transforms but does not reject previous forms.

Previously dominated the notion that simple "primitive" communities had been replaced by modern society. Nowadays, it is obvious to both theorists and practitioners that human exists primarily in "communities" - proximity of residence, experience, interests, beliefs, preferences, etc. - and not in a broad, and therefore sufficiently abstract, society. (For more details on methodological shifts in this field see [1]). Of course, we are not talking about "primitive", clearly defined, and closed communities, in which the name of a tribe was the definition of a person. The contemporary life is multiple and one's own identity is defined at the junction of various "communities". The quotation marks here emphasize the issue of unclear terminology in this field. But the basis of further consideration is the widespread recognition that "community" matters, "community" weighs.

Social healing

Firstly, abstracting from the vagueness of the "community's" definition we outline the issue of "social healing" in itself. It can be generalized in two dimensions.

The first one, in which the term "community-based social healing" (CBSH) is most commonly used, is aimed at the social support of individual healing. On the one hand, we are talking about specialized psychotherapeutic approaches, in which is determined that the productivity of treatment, as well as the sustainability of its results, requires the inseparability of individual treatment from the supportive environment and the complex normalization of this environment if it is toxic and traumatic. On the other hand, it is about a wide field of approaches that take care of a person's mental health and psycho-social support (MHPSS). Such approaches are relevant in conditions of severe collective traumas - structural (discriminatory) and historical (for example, war). In both cases, "healing" predominantly has the meaning of "treatment".

The second dimension of "social healing" is, so to speak, "external" - the healing of society in general. "Healing" in this case acquires a slightly different meaning: the production of productive wholeness. Like in the individual dimension "health is wholeness"[2]. This dimension is based on the connection between the general level of democratic civil society and "grassroots initiatives" at the community level. The very possibility of such decentralized initiatives is one of the basic manifestations of civil society, and on the other hand, support of such initiatives is now recognized as one of the main means of supporting civil society in general. According to T. Sander and R. Putnam, the issue of community, as one of the basic principles of contemporary life, is inextricably linked with social capital. Social capital, in turn, refers to "social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trust to which those networks give rise. No democracy, and indeed no society, can be healthy without at least a modicum of this resource"[3].

Defining the "community"

The wide field of ambiguity in defining "community" is demonstrated even by the two outlined dimensions of social healing -- it is some sort of collective relationship within a group that is "something bigger" than individual and "lesser" than social.

The plurality of "community's" definitions can be generalized by three:

1. a localized on a different scale group of people (neighborhood, district,

town).

2. a group of people united by a common feature: employment, interest, preferences, etc. A common feature also may be a shared trauma.

3. a group of people united by the sense of community.

The first two definitions are the most common in everyday use. However, it seems that they deal not with "community" as such, but rather with "territorial community" and "community by a common feature". These definitions are related: people who live next to each other often have common characteristics. However, as "points of reference" for the definition of "community", both of these options seem insufficient.

Both options have a common problem - "objectivity", which makes these definitions too abstract. Both of them are based on some "external" feature by which people can be classified. Their second common problem is the uncertainty of the very group of people that is represented by the term.

Thus, the term "territorial community" can mean both a group of neighbors and the city as a whole. But even besides the scale of the city, the mere fact of the neighborhood does not imply that this group of people is a community. On the other hand, a "community by a common feature" may include an extremely large and dispersed number of people who are potentially (though not necessarily) united only by this one feature. Moreover, in such a wide application of the term "community", the basic feature in many cases may not have a value burden for its bearers - be a feature of the "population category". It should be emphasized that the need for such broad definitions is not undermined here. It is just about the need for clear terminology distinctions and avoiding confusion with the ambiguous word "community": it is necessary to distinguish between such general dimensions and the definition of a "concrete" community, community as such.

The third definition of "community" is, on the contrary, "subjective", aimed at identifying the very specifics of the collective relationship. This is a dimension of another order, which is potentially inherent in the other two dimensions. However, it does not provide clarity by itself either.

That is, all three options are unproductively broad and abstract. At the same time, they can be used as a starting point in the definition of a "concrete" community, which is necessary for "community-based social healing".

Scheme 1

In English, only one word "community" completely confuses everything. In Ukrainian it is possible to clearly separate at least a "territorial community" - hromada. Moreover, "hromada" does not refer only to the territorial principle, but also has a clear connection with the wider civil (hromadianske) society and its inherent values.

In this case, what is meant by "community" as such? The following definition is proposed: a localized/compact and united by a common feature/problem group of people, whose sense of community is based on interpersonal connections. We are talking about a limited number of people, between whom relatively constant interaction takes place. According to Dunbar's number, the average number of permanent social relationships that the cognitive abilities of the human brain can support is 150. So, in general, this number of people can be considered the limit for the existence of a community in the given definition.

Community in this sense is an intersection of the dimensions outlined above in a specific context of the life of a specific group of people. In today's urbanized and mediatized world, human life is rarely limited to one such specific and "local" social context. Moreover, communities are components of wider hromadas and "communities by a common feature". However, specifically at this grassroots level of concrete life the social and individual intersect and define each other.

Actually, the "point" of effort or the "minimum entry point" in the above - mentioned options of "community-based social healing" - individual treatment, mental health and support of vulnerable categories of the population or the development of civil society through grassroots initiatives - can only be the community in this definition. In two out of three options, it is generally obvious. It is worth clarifying this question in the context of psychosocial support. In support of victims of structural or historical collective traumas, efforts are aimed at a broad category of the population, actually united by a common feature. However, such support is always "limited" to specific people in specific contexts. This is also obvious. But in addition to the fact that it should not be forgotten, such a constant "limitation" of the realization of the general goal is not only an obstacle. This "local" dimension, although it is only a part of the general "community by a common feature", it is something more. It is determined not only by a common feature - in interpersonal "saturation" it is a potential source of changes.

With the above distinctions, the continuum between the individual and general social dimensions can be systematized as follows: "individual - community - hromada/"community by a common feature" - civil society".

"Community-based social healing" in an outward direction can then be seen as working with communities to adjust a wider level of hromada/"community by..." and the most general level of civil society accordingly.

Sense of community

The most unclear question remains - what exactly makes a group of people, defined by some "external" features, a community? D. McMillan and D. Chavis proposed a concept for this unclear "internal" dimension - sense-of-community - the feeling and significance of connectedness. They identify four basic elements of this sense.

First, shared by members of the community sense of belonging ("membership"). "The sense of belonging and identification involves the feeling, belief, and expectation that one fits in the group and has a place there, a feeling of acceptance by the group, and a willingness to sacrifice for the group"[4]. On the flip side researchers define the need for boundaries between belonging and nonbelonging for emotional safety.

Secondly, the feeling of a person's importance for the group's impor tance for its members ("influence"). "In one direction, there is the notion that for a member to be attracted to a group, he or she must have some influence over what the group does...On the other hand, cohesiveness is contingent on a group's ability to influence its members"[4].

Thirdly, integration and satisfaction of needs (reinforcement). "This is the feeling that members' needs will be met by the resources received through their membership in the group"[4].

Fourth, a common emotional connection, which is based on the belief in the commonality of past and future experiences. This emotional connection "is based, in part, on a shared history. It is not necessary that group members have participated in the history in order to share it, but they must identify with it. The interactions of members in shared events and the specific attributes of the events may facilitate or inhibit the strength of the community"[4].

The outlined approach is only one of the options for determining the internal "essence" of the community and, like any conceptual construction, it can be questioned. However, it seems to be quite illustrative.

The most important thing is that such answers to the theoretical question "What makes a group of people a community?" are at the same time answers to extremely practical questions: "What could be the problems of the community?" and "How to turn a group of people into a community?"

If we visualize the multidimensionality of working with communities in such a scheme, the previous part was limited to its upper half. Now it is necessary to turn to the bottom - the need for "community healing".

The need for "community healing"

Viewing the community through the prism of the sense of community reveals two important points. First, this inner quality is neither mandatory nor permanent in the interaction of a group of people. In short, it may not be fully developed, or it may deteriorate. The term "community healing" combines the dimensions of solving these problems - healing as the "strengthening of wholeness" and as "treatment".

"What makes a healthy community?..expanding the community resources that enable people to support each other in performing all the functions of life and in developing themselves to their maximum potential"[2].

In the multitude of initiatives that take care of the community's life, or the life of people in the community - of this level of collective existence and concrete life "in itself" - this is obvious. The importance of community is recognized as one of the main needs that exists above basic survival. But the question is also more radical: in the modern world, it is forgotten and not very visible that the collective way of life is the basis of human survival. In general, working with the community in such initiatives is aimed at improving this internal commonality, on which the quality of individual life and interpersonal interaction depends.

But "community healing" is a need not only of approaches for which the community is the "goal". "Community-based social healing", for which the community is, so to speak, the "means", also needs "community healing". Support of individual or general social dimensions will not be productive if the community is not "healed".

In fact, these two "poles" depicted in Scheme 3 should be considered as two interdependent components of systemic work with communities. Of course, depending on the focus of attention, one of these components gains more weight, but it necessarily contains the second.

So, for example, the instruction of "community-based social healing" itself is based on the recognition of the "power" of the community - the importance of community. However, if each community had this "power" in full, then there would be no need for these approaches. The need for external "intervention" necessarily includes the need to adjust or re-adjust the community - to heal the community, even if the general goal of such "intervention" is different. On the other hand, the community as a "main goal" is a rather abstract formulation. Grassroots initiatives in the community environment affect the individual dimension (in particular, mental health) and the general social dimension.

Secondly, defining the constitutive sense of community allows us to talk about a slightly different dimension of "community healing", which is especially relevant in such crisis conditions as a full-scale war.

"Transformative" or "processual" community

The dimension of "community healing" outlined above refers to working with already existing communities. The other dimension refers to the formation of the community, based on its "relational" sense (feeling and significance) of commonality. But in combination with the general instruction of "community-based social healing," it is important that forming such a community is not a goal in itself. It is about a community that, gathering in itself all the elements outlined in the general Scheme 3, should be everything and nothing at the same time - should be aimed at the very process of transformation. It is a difficult but urgent task: to heal "out of nothing" a healing - supportive and transforming - community.

Such a need is extremely urgent for Ukrainian society in the reality of war, and at the same time, it can be explained quite clearly through this context. So what is it about?

1. In the conditions of the ongoing full-scale phase of the war, Ukrainian society has a collective trauma. On the one hand, war affects everyone to a greater or lesser extent. On the other hand, a part of the population is traumatized by the war much more than others. Society is traumatized by the disparity of experiences which leads to misunderstandings and conflicts, and most importantly such a traumatized society is traumatizing - strengthening the trauma of the most affected part of the population.

2.1 At a lower level, we are talking about the part of the population most traumatized by the war - families of the dead, IDPs, veterans - who need priority support. Within the limits of the terminological distinctions made above, this level can be called "community by common feature" - but with one clarification. Such commonality defined by common trauma and pain may be useful for external and mutual support in the short term, but is fundamentally undesirable.

2.2 Another dimension at this level of social organization is hromadas. In this dimension arises the problem of normalization of relations between population groups with different experiences - the need for mutual acceptance and integration.

3. First of all, obviously, trauma is individual.

What is the role of "community healing" in this system? A community that unites a group of individuals must be healed to be healing - it is a general principle.

But what is meant by a "transformative" and "processual" community? It is about the need to create a real, "concrete" community of people, which in the process of healing and transforming must overcome itself; a community that should be significant and supportive, but not significant in itself.

Let's take as an example the Ukrainian society's urgent problem of the vulnerable state of internally displaced persons. On the one hand, it is about concrete people with an individual dimension of war trauma. On the other hand, they are included in wider social formations - in an abstract "community by a common feature" and a new hromada in which they are directly localized. The problem in this broader dimension is the loss of social capital caused by forced relocation.

How can you help an abstract category of people? Through "concrete" communities determined here and now by objective factors - for example, a certain specific group of IDPs localized in the hromada of the Dnipro city and the representatives of the hostage hromada. The task of "community healing" in this case is the formation of a community from such a disparate group of people: its gathering and maintenance of stable and healthy interaction within it, which acquires a significant commonality and supports its representatives. However, is such a community the goal? No, because the external psycho-social support of the representatives and their mutual support in such a community is aimed beyond its borders: in the joint processing of personal traumatic histories to acquire a new common history in a new place, to get out of the traumatized state of IDPs and integrate into the hromada.

Of course, the interpersonal connections formed in such a supportive and generally healing community are significant. However, the process of "community- based social healing" is not limited to the community itself, because the reverse and counter-productive scenario is possible: not working through the trauma, but its joint conservation and self-marginalization based on it.

Role of the "healing leader"

The last thing to pay attention to is the role of an initiative person or group of people as "agents of change" in working with communities.

In general, a group of people always depends on a more or less clearly expressed leader, it needs, if not organization and leadership, then at least direction to achieve its own goals. The same can be said about the community, although with the clarification that the most general "goal" here should be considered the maintenance of a meaningful and effective commonality.

Sufficiently developed in this matter is the concept of "community leader", which is one of the drivers and indicators of a normally functioning community. But "community healing" - both in the adjustment of an already existing community, and especially in the case of the formation of a "phantom" or "transit" healing community - requires external intervention. The initiative element of this intervention can be understood as a temporary external replacement of the "community leader". With this in mind, this special position can be generally analyzed by the concept of "community leader". However, these two roles are not identical at all. Therefore, it is suggested to use another term - "healing leader".

"Effective community leaders have been characterized as change agents (Schein, 1995); individuals with the ability to mobilize others (Javidan & Dstmalchian, 1993), create conditions (McGrath, 1964), and take the initiative (Winter, 1978)...such leaders have clarity about their purpose (Larson & LaFasto, 1989)"[5]. In general, the community leader can be understood as a community member who wants to make changes and has the energy and courage to make a contribution for the sake of others. Other qualities of a community leader are defined by researchers as the ability to take responsibility for the fulfillment of tasks, to take a symbolic role for the group, and moral responsibility to others, etc. Also, an important aspect in this matter is the moral instruction of "service".

This is one of the basic instructions of the "healing leader" too, but in a slightly different and more radical version. The "service" of the "community leader" is mostly seen as the style of organizational leadership - servant leadership, which supports horizontal interaction. At the same time, the "healing leader", albeit temporarily, directly serves the community, acts for its sake - such a moral guideline should generally determine external intervention in the community.

The second basic instruction of the "healing leader" is to maintain an external position. To adjust the interaction within the community, it is necessary to be "above" it, to a certain extent to objectify and analyze it. The competence of "social awareness" is important - the ability to understand the community through its internal atmosphere, stories and processes, the distribution of roles and the connection between them, the external context in which the community exists, etc. Community healing requires constant research, analysis of the effectiveness of the applied activities in concrete conditions, and their reconfiguration in case of inefficiency or the appearance of new challenges. Also important, and crucial for the sustainability of healing is to identify and support community members who themselves become agents of change.

In general, at the intersection of these two basic instructions, the special role of the "healing leader" involves "being" inside and outside at the same time.

Potential challenges for the "healing leader" can be divided into three categories:

1. external - those that come from unpredictable situations and established institutional constraints in which communities exist. In the case of communities that are united by objective features and need strengthening of sense-of-community - such as school communities - institutional constraints, prejudices, and hierarchies are among the main challenges for the "healing leader".

2. internal - based on the personal dimension (possible intolerance, loss of confidence in one's actions, etc.). And also those that arise from the very essence of the leadership role: "responsibilities, motivating people - often without seeming to do so - and keeping them from stagnating when they're doing well. Leaders also have to motivate themselves, and not just to seem, but actually to be, enthusiastic about what they're doing"[6]. Burnout is one the biggest challenges for a "healing leader".

3. in the relationship between the leader and the community. In general, an integral component, and therefore one of the basic challenges of external intervention for community healing, is the acquisition by the leader of an authoritative and symbolic role that legitimizes and supports the significance of joint activities and a special relationship between participants. On the other hand, too strong centralization around the leader weakens the sustainability of a healed community after the end of such external intervention. Or there is another possible risk - community members mistaking leadership for service delivery.

Conclusion

Communities are the basic social environment of human existence and the basis of collective relationship. By now, in addition to practical grassroots initiatives at the level of communities, the theoretical and practical guideline of "community-based social healing" is relevant. It is based on the importance of community in supporting individual healing (treatment and maintaining wholeness) and the efficiency of civil society.

To clarify this issue, a terminological distinction is proposed between a hromada ("territorial community"), a "community by common feature" and the community itself - a localized and united by common feature/problem group of people, whose sense-of-community (feeling and significance of commonality) is based on interpersonal connections - concrete people in a concrete context.

Through these three categories, it is proposed to consider the continuum between the individual dimension and the sufficiently abstract social one.

It is also defined that the reverse side of working with the community - both when the community is the goal of grassroots initiatives and when it is a means of "community-based social healing" - is the need for "community healing". Depending on the focus of attention, one of these system dimensions gains more weight, but it necessarily includes the second.

A special need, urgent for the healing of collective traumas, is defined as the formation ("healing") of a specific healing community, which can be called "transformative" or "processual". It is about the formation of a community determined by the objective factors of a common problem and localization, which in the process of healing should overcome itself - to have meaning, but not to be significant, to be aimed at the very process of transformation. The external psychosocial support of its members and their mutual support in such a community is aimed beyond its boundaries, determined by external features: in the acquisition of new significant connections and the joint processing of personal stories it aims to create a new common history - and at the same time in the common history to process the personal one; its goal is to get out of the traumatized state and reintegrate in the wider social dimensions - and at the same time to integrate and get out of the traumatized state.

A basic aspect of "community-based social healing'V'community healing" is external intervention, which can be seen as a temporary external replacement of the "community leader" role. To denote this special role, it is proposed to use the term "healing leader", who serves the community, supports it from within, and at the same time, must maintain an external position, be "above" the community, and to some extent objectify, analyze and readjust it.

References

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[2] Section 17. Leading a Community Dialogue on Building a Healthy Community | Chapter 3. Assessing Community Needs and Resources | Community Tool Box. (n.d.). https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and- resources/community-dialogue/main

[3] Sander, T. H., & Putnam, R. D. (2010, January). Democracy's Past and Future: Still Bowling Alone? - The Post-9/11 Split. journal of Democracy, 21(1), 9-16.https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.0.0153

[4] McMillan, D. W., & Chavis, D. M. (1986). Sense of community: A definition and theory. journal of Community Psychology, 14(1), 6-23. https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6629(198601 )14:1 <6::AID-JCOP2290140103>3.0.CO;2-I

[5] Lamm, K. W., Carter, H., Lamm, A., & Lindsay, A. (2017). Community leadership: A theory-based model. journal of Leadership Education, 16(3), 118-133. https://doi.org/10.12806/v16/i3/t2

[6] Rabinowitz, P. (n.d.). Section 6. recognizing the challenges of leadership. Chapter 13. Orienting Ideas in Leadership | Community Tool Box. https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of- contents/leadership/leadership-ideas/leadership-challenges/main

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