How We Can Heal

Truth and Repair with Dr. Judith Herman

• Lisa Danylchuk • Season 6 • Episode 1

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Dr. Judith Herman, a towering figure in trauma studies and author of the landmark books "Trauma and Recovery" and "Truth and Repair," takes us on a journey through the evolution of trauma understanding from the 1970s—when we didn't even have terminology for what victims experienced—to today's complex landscape of healing and justice.

Drawing from decades of clinical work and research with survivors, Dr. Herman reveals how trauma exists within frameworks of dominance and subordination that permeate every level of human organization. "Whenever you have a dominant group and a subordinate group, especially when that dominance is deeply embedded in cultures and traditions, ultimately that dominance is enforced by violence," she explains. This perspective illuminates why healing cannot happen in isolation from addressing social power structures.

Perhaps most revolutionary are her findings about what survivors actually want from justice systems. Through interviews with 30 trauma survivors, she discovered that punishment of offenders—the primary offering of our criminal justice system—ranked surprisingly low on survivors' priority lists. Instead, survivors unanimously desired public acknowledgment of what happened, particularly from bystanders rather than perpetrators. They wanted the harm recognized and denounced by their communities. As one survivor powerfully stated, "I think he'd get a kick out of talking about what he did. He wouldn't really be sorry."

Dr. Herman's wisdom extends beyond analysis to action. She advocates for small community groups as starting points for change, emphasizing that healing happens in connection with others. "You can't do it alone," she reminds us. Her mother's saying—"activism is the antidote to despair"—continues to guide her vision for a world built on relationships of equality and mutuality rather than dominance and submission.

Join us for this profound conversation with a true pioneer whose work has transformed how we understand trauma, healing, and the pursuit of justice. Listen, share, and be part of the movement toward a more trauma-informed society.


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In this free 60-minute training, I’ll guide you through a compassionate process of identifying trauma and exploring a path forward. Together, we’ll connect with the inner resources and resilience that make healing possible, so you can move beyond surviving and begin to truly thrive.

In this session, we’ll explore:

✨What trauma is and how to recognize it - understanding the signs and patterns that may be shaping your life.

✨Pathways through trauma - tools and approaches to help you find your way forward with compassion.

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✨Steps toward thriving - how to move from simply getting by to living with more ease, connection, and vitality.

This hour together is an opportunity to learn, reflect, and connect with the deeper strengths that are already within you. Whether you’re new to this work or looking to deepen your practice, you’ll leave with practical insights and supportive practices you can carry into your daily life.

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Lisa Danylchuk:

Welcome back to the how we Can Heal podcast. Today, our guest is Dr Judith Herman. Dr Judith Herman is a part-time senior lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. For 30 years, until retirement, she was director of training at the Victims of Violence Program at the Cambridge Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She's the author of the award-winning books Trauma and Recovery and Father-Daughter Incest, and her newest book, truth and Repair how Trauma Survivors Envision Justice, was published in 2023 and called by the New York Times a beautiful, profound and important book. She's received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1984 and the 1996 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. In 2007, she was named a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Dr Herman is recognized nationally and internationally as a pioneer in the field of traumatic stress, both for her research contributions and for her conceptual work. Today, she shares how trauma is deeply embedded into social structures, highlighting how tyranny and patriarchy contribute to violence, harm and trauma and make recovery difficult. She also shares what she's learned from decades working directly with victims and from her interviews and research with survivors, specifically about justice and repair. She's a legend in her own right, so I'm honored to have this conversation and to share it here with you today. Please join me in welcoming Dr Judith Herman to the show. Share it here with you today.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Please join me in welcoming Dr Judith Herman to the show. I'm Dr Judith Herman to the how we Can Heal podcast. I'm so excited and delighted and thrilled to have you here today. Thank you for having me. Yes, I'd love to go back to the beginning and just learn about when you first heard about, learned about the word trauma and when it became a part of your reality, because it's been such a big part of your writing and your life and your teaching. So I'm curious when did you first hear about it?

Dr. Judith Herman:

Well, we didn't have. Probably I could date this to 1970. Okay, and that year two things happened. I had joined a consciousness-raising group, actually in 69. And then in July 1970, I started my psychiatric residency, and the consciousness-raising group that I belonged to was certainly a very privileged demographic, all white, college-educated women. But even in that demographic people were sharing stories of sexual assault and sexual harassment, intimate partner violence. We didn't have those terms then. None of that was named back then.

Dr. Judith Herman:

The first speak out on rape and the consciousness raising groups then led to public disclosures. The first rape, I think, happened around 1970. And at the same time, when I started my residency, I was assigned to an inpatient unit. My very first two patients were women who had made suicide attempts. Yeah, and both of them gave histories of father-daughter incest and one of them, in addition, had escaped from her father by marrying as a teenager to a man who became extremely abusive, as is often, it turns out, often the case. Yeah, People who are physically or sexually abused as kids are between two and four times as likely to be re-victimized. Yep, adolescents or adults. You really can't get higher than four times as high, because the baseline's around 25 percent. So right and anyway. She said, you know he was going to kill her anyway. So she was might as well get it over with. Well, and so you, here was my textbook, saying that incest occurred in one case per million. So what do you think were the odds that an absolute newbie would get two cases in a month?

Dr. Judith Herman:

Yeah, so I mean, we didn't have the word trauma then. It wasn't until 1980. Them, it wasn't until 1980, basically, when, thanks to the organizing of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, post-traumatic stress disorder was recognized as a real diagnosis in the diagnostic manual. And, by the way, they had a very similar organizing process where they began with what they called wrap groups that were organized outside of the VA or the health or mental health system because they didn't trust the VA, trust the VA. And in fact my colleague, robert J Lifton, was a psychiatrist who early on was a facilitator for some of those rap groups and he wrote a book called Home from the War about Vietnam veterans and it was their testimony that you know. They went again from sharing their stories in a small confidential group to public speaking out publicly and saying we're home from Vietnam, but in our heads we're still there. Yeah, and so that's how trauma entered the lexicon.

Lisa Danylchuk:

How did you learn how to work with it when there's no word for it, like what taught you? Or who did you go to in the early days as a newbie, with two inside spaces right in front of you, like where do you go? What do you do?

Dr. Judith Herman:

Well, I did have my women's group. That was an enormous source of support, yes, and luckily I also had supervisors who took it seriously. I have to share this story domestic violence seriously, because my patient, who was married to this very abusive man, said she was afraid of him, she didn't want him visiting on the unit, yeah, and so the nurses wouldn't let him in and he didn't like that one bit. At a certain point he got in and he threatened the male unit director, male psychiatrist, you never saw the police get there so fast, oh, okay.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah.

Dr. Judith Herman:

So after that they took her seriously when she said he was going to kill her. You know, because of course the things it takes right, he'd never seen the police. I mean, the police were called numerous times to her home and they always just took him for a walk around the block. You know, never made an arrest. But when he threatened a male psychiatrist, oh that was a different story. So interesting, I had supervisors who did take it seriously. The other thing was when they started talking about it and somebody believed them and supported them, they got better. Yeah, you know.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah.

Dr. Judith Herman:

And they stopped being suicidal and their depression lifted. I mean, there was no such thing as battered women's shelter back then, so the patient basically used the hospital as a de facto shelter. And you know the first transition house in Cambridge, which was either the first or second battered women's shelter, mr Second Ratted Women's Shelter put it in 1976. Could have been 73. Boston Area Rape Crisis Center started in 73. So I mean, and all of these were organizations completely developed by grassroots volunteers outside the healthcare and mental health systems. When I eventually started to work at Cambridge Hospital, which was a Harvard teaching hospital, we started the Victims of Violence program. Basically, we invited the grassroots organizers to join our staff because they had the knowledge base that was completely missing in the mental health system so they could bring their education in together.

Lisa Danylchuk:

I'm curious, just given your long history and dedication to this field, going back to times when we didn't have the word trauma, when there weren't any places for people experiencing intimate partner violence to go, how do you feel about the progress we've made in the last four or five decades in this field, in mental health and trauma specifically?

Dr. Judith Herman:

Well, it's two steps forward, one step back, or sometimes one step forward. Two steps back, I mean certainly in terms of public awareness of gender violence. We're in a very different place. Yes, I mean, you know, with the second wave of consciousness raising and speak outs and that led to a lot of good epidemiological research and scientific publications. And then another round with the Me Too movement, the awareness of the endemic nature of exploitation of women and children is much greater. No question about that. The effective response is a work in progress. We've had important steps forward, like the Victims of Crime Act and Violence Against Women Act, and then VAWA hasn't been renewed and a lot of the Victims of Crime Act funding that went for grassroots crisis services and so on has been cut back, and so in terms of availability of grassroots services, that's kind of fluctuates. Yeah, the legal system response has been very minimal. Probably the biggest breakthrough is having victim witness advocates in the courts and having civil straining orders for domestic violence. Those were two big achievements.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Yeah, were too big achievements, yeah, but in terms of basically making you know, the track record in terms of treating gender violence as a crime is still pathetic. I mean, rape is supposedly a felony. In fact, if you look at the percentage of cases that get reported to law enforcement, which covers around 20, 25%, and then you then look at cases cleared by arrest, cases accepted for prosecution, cases resulting in conviction, you basically have an exponential decay curve on what you see in terms of conviction rate compared to the actual prevalence of rape. Maybe maximum 5% of rape cases, probably more like 2% to 3%. Yeah, you know, because, unless it's, you know the fantasy of a Black stranger raping a pretty blonde virgin teenager, which is extremely rare.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Most rape, you know, those are pursued very vigorously. Yeah, most rapes are committed not by strangers but by acquaintances or inmates. Most rapes are committed by. You know, once it's someone the victim knows. Yeah, then you know it becomes and there are no witnesses, it becomes he said, she said, and he doesn't look like a stereotypic demon rapist. He's, you know, just a fine young man with a promising career ahead of him, a good athlete.

Lisa Danylchuk:

A lot of benefit of the doubt given to a perpetrator and little to any given to the victim.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Well, the victim is really from the trial. Let's face it. Why was she wearing that dress? How many beers did?

Lisa Danylchuk:

she have. You talk in your recent book, truth and Repair, about so many dynamics that set the stage for this, and you share an important thought across your writing that trauma is often suppressed because it threatens social power structures, and I think that's a really powerful message. And in your book, which was published in 2023, truth and Repair, you talk about tyranny and patriarchy and the relationship between the two. And so, since we're talking about rape and we're talking about gender violence in this way and the justice system, how it responds, what do you think everyone needs to understand about tyranny, like what that looks like, how it sets the stage for trauma.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Well, tyranny is about a relationship of dominance and subordination. It's about the powerful rule, the weak submit. The bystanders look the other way because they're either intimidating themselves they don't want to get involved because then they'll get covered or they're going along for the ride and collaborating, basically, facilitating their accomplices basically. And that type of relationship of dominance and subordination exists at every level of human organization. So it exists in intimate relationships and family relationships. Yeah, Can exist. It exists in workplaces, it exists in the nation state and it exists in religious organizations. Yeah, whether the dominance and subordination are based on gender or race or caste or class or religion, where the strong rule, the weak submit and the bystanders basically try to stay out of it.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah.

Dr. Judith Herman:

And the only way to to change that, as if the bystanders actually ally with the victims, the bystanders.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Ally with the victims yeah, not the perpetrators, yeah.

Dr. Judith Herman:

So that's why you use social movement, yes, to affect change in the tyrannical system.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yes, and I want to talk more about affecting that change and where we can put our energy. I think there's as a result of technology, as a result of politics and other things, we can feel really fragmented and distracted and busy all the time. I want to talk about how to invest our energy in that positive change, but before we get there, I think sometimes when we start talking about terms you know I'm interviewing Dr Tama Bryant on this podcast too, and she talks a little bit about when people say decolonial, people get triggered like, well, what is that? Maybe don't fully get what it means. And she'll be like well, are you for slavery, Are you for oppressing other people?

Lisa Danylchuk:

Because if you're not comfortable talking about decolonializing, then that's really what you're advocating for, these harmful dynamics. And then the people go no, no, I don't want that. So I think it's similar with patriarchy where, depending on the ears that are hearing it, people might start to just glaze over or shut down or it's too big or it's too ingrained in cultures around the world. So can we clarify when we're talking about tyranny and we're talking about dominance and subordination, how does patriarchy fit in in terms of trauma? How is that perpetuating the harm that's done and the difficulty in recovery.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Whenever you have a dominant group and a subordinate group, and especially when that dominance and subordination are deeply embedded in the cultures and the traditions. Ultimately that dominance is enforced by violence. The methods, of course, of control are always the same, whether you're talking about a family, whether you're talking about a religious cult, whether you're talking about a slave plantation. Ultimately, the enforcement comes down to violence. And there are many other methods of enforcement. Violence doesn't have to be used very often, it just has to be very persuasive when it is used. Yes, so you know, if you want to keep women subordinate, you've got to make an example of some of them and you've got to instill fear in all of them. So you know, don't you dare go out at night, or don't you dare wear a short dress, or don't you dare try to participate in activities where women are not supposed to be participating.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Someone was just asking me recently. I lived in Italy for a year, in Bologna, and they asked if I dated while I was there and I was like, oh, not really I dated this one person. And then he said he was going to a soccer game, football match. Oh, I'd love to go. Oh, no, women can't go there. I would take a woman to a football game. And I was like I think we're done here, that's enough. I've heard enough. Even if it is people are drinking and fighting, that's okay. I can go to the soccer match if I want to.

Dr. Judith Herman:

But I mean, you know, when they started doing research on sexual assault on college campuses, for example, and you know that demographic is at the peak age for vulnerability and surprise, surprise fraternities, you know all male spaces, male-controlled spaces, were high-risk spaces. The fraternities and football teams basically have their own tyrannical initiation rights for the members, the male members. But then once they've formed the fraternity and they've bonded as a male group, then they practice those same methods on women. That's why you get the party where the freshman girls are invited and the punch is spiked and the wombs are set aside.

Lisa Danylchuk:

So the harm just gets passed down and the pattern of dominance and subordination starts with the initiation and the fraternity and then goes on to impact Right.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Where, interestingly too, that with a lot of the bystander intervention prevention work with young men, one of the young men are scared of being targeted by other men too.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah, a faggot, a wuss, a bitch if they don't go along so when you think about these dynamics of tyranny and patriarchy and dominance and subordination across genders right, you were just talking about men hazing men and you talked about how it shows up in the workplace right, it can show up across people when you think about that shifting or going away, the problematic dynamics ending, what words do you have to describe what a healthy dynamic and culture looks like, one that supports trauma recovery, one that supports prevention of trauma, one that's just healthier for everyone?

Dr. Judith Herman:

A contrast with a relationship of tyranny is a relationship of equality or mutuality. Yeah, and again, that happens on every level of relationship, even in families where, of course, parents have much more power and knowledge than children. You don't have equality, but you can have a lot of mutuality, even from a very early age. In fact, that's how children form safe attachments and are socialized. So that's a very basic form of relationship that allows us to live with one another. And so you look for relationships of social equality where the rules are, everybody has a voice, everybody gets respect, everybody gets to participate in decision-making and the decisions are made by negotiation and compromise rather than imposing one person's will all of that feels so important and resonates as I raise my daughter toddlers really you can negotiate, yeah.

Dr. Judith Herman:

What a toddler learns is you can't always get what you want, but but you can get. How do the Rolling Stones put it? You get what you need, you know, yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk:

So I'm curious if we're taking steps towards equality. Obviously, I think understanding trauma helps. Understanding these dynamics, like seeing it seems to be one of the first steps. We're swimming in these power structures.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Right, yeah, and you've got to make it and raise awareness before you do anything else.

Lisa Danylchuk:

So through the work you've done, your books, lots of people I think that see it are trying to send that message out and say look what's happening in this dynamic and look how it's harmful. So the awareness and the education is really important. A lot of folks that listen to this podcast are mental health professionals, are in the wellness space, are helpers and healers and people Mr Rogers says to look for in the world. So for those of us that see it and maybe just have a hard time maintaining energy forward, what would you say can anchor us in moving towards that equality? What's the vision? And maybe, if there's steps that come to mind like things we can do on the daily, on the weekly, on the yearly, what can we do to continue?

Dr. Judith Herman:

can we do to continue having your own support group?

Lisa Danylchuk:

yeah, you can't do it alone. And what are steps that take a social group towards more?

Dr. Judith Herman:

equality. You know, I do think the small group group where you start with, where everybody is right now.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Whether you're talking about a consciousness raising group or a rap group or in the civil rights movement, they had these freedom schools where people came and again just talked about the realities of their lives, and that was the beginning of community organizing. Start with people where they are. Yeah, yeah, what can I do about climate change? It's just a worldwide problem. It's having to do with oil, all gargoyle. I mean, how do you start? Well, what's happening in your local community? Yeah, no, you probably can't take on the Saudis and the United Emirates and Putin, and not to mention our own oligarchs, but there's probably some stuff going on in your community.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah, and that's, I think, where you begin yeah, in your book you talk about and these are chapter titles too you talk about acknowledgement, apology, accountability, especially when we're talking about the layers of trauma, the specific trauma that happens to a single victim or group of victims, and the layers outright. I feel like those are really important takeaways for folks in the justice system, for folks who are working with survivors, but also for anyone and everyone to understand the inner workings of how much trauma can harm the power structures that create that environment and allow for it, but also to find this roadmap through when you're interviewing folks. I think there were 30 survivors that you interviewed for Truth and Repair. What are some of the things you wish? Everyone knew that you gathered directly from those survivors.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Well, I think the sort of main take-home message was that what the justice system offers as resolutions for crimes was not a very good fit with what victims said they wanted. Because for the criminal justice system, what it offers as a successful outcome is punishment of the offender, and that turned out to be pretty far down the list of what most survivors wanted. And then what the civil justice system offers is money. Civil justice system offers is money, and that also turned out to be not top of the list for many survivors. What the survivors wanted most and in fact this was unanimous 30 out of 30 interviewees said they wanted acknowledgement, public acknowledgement, and it was more important to them to get the acknowledgement from the bystanders than it was to get the acknowledgement from the perpetrator. They were prepared for the fact that the perpetrator might go right on denying it.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah that the perpetrator might go right on denying it?

Dr. Judith Herman:

Yeah, but they wanted the bystanders to believe them, yeah, and they wanted not only acknowledgement of the facts but acknowledgement of the harm and acknowledgement that this was wrong. Yeah, because oftentimes denial is always the first level of defense, but if you've got DNA evidence, for example, right, the next level is. So what's the big deal? Yeah, it's over. Let's forgive and forget. So, acknowledging the harm, I'm acknowledging that the crime occurred. Yeah, they wanted the bystanders to recognize the harm and denounce the crime, and they wanted the perpetrators exposed so that the bystanders had limits. Yes, for happening again. That was top of the list.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah.

Dr. Judith Herman:

People and so punishment. A lot of people just basically said what good is that going to do me? Yeah, you know that's not going to fix anything. Yeah, they were also not very excited about forgiveness. They were not into let's forgive and forget. In fact they were afraid of.

Dr. Judith Herman:

I mean, there were exceptions. There were some people who had actually had confrontations with the perpetrator, where the perpetrator genuinely apologized and showed genuine remorse. And then you know one woman who wrote about how forgiveness was just spontaneous. It wasn't something you had to work at, it was just. She saw this genuine remorse and it was like a weight was lifted from her shoulders. But those were rare cases More often.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Another incest survivor who I interviewed said I think he'd get a kick out of talking about what he did.

Dr. Judith Herman:

He wouldn't really be sorry, he'd admit it, but he'd relish it. And then, if he did admit it, my family would want me to forgive him and I don't want to do that. And I think there was even among the clergy people that I interviewed that it's just too easy to pressure the victims to forgive. It's a lot harder to actually get the perpetrators to change and get them to a place of remorse and contrition and in fact, mostly we don't know how to do that because we've never invested in any kind of serious rehabilitation effort and we don't even know what the true prevalence is in terms of offending and let alone the sort of spectrum of offenders, some of whom might well be good candidates for rehabilitation, and others who are true sociopaths and repeat offenders. You really would have to segregate them. The only way to keep the community safe would be to supervise them all the time. So they didn't want punishment, they didn't want forgiveness and money damages. People were very conflicted about the money.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Because, on the one hand, people said, how much money have I spent on doctors and healthcare and hospitals, on doctors and dental health care and hospitals but on the other hand, it would feel like dirty money. Yeah well, I didn't want to feel like they've been bought and, of course, especially the victims of trafficking who haven't sold really didn't want me, the money just felt contaminated.

Dr. Judith Herman:

There was one rape victim I interviewed who it was one of these cases where she did report to the police. I mean, it was a former boyfriend who she had broken up with and he raped her when she went to his apartment to retrieve some of her artwork he's an artist To basically punish her for breaking up with him. And she did report him to police. The DA declined to prosecute because he said she said that they had a prior sexual relationship so he was going to claim consent. But she did file a civil suit and he was found liable. And what came? Time for her to say what she wanted in money damages. She said she wanted him to give $30 to the local rape crisis center and the $30 represented the 30 pieces of silver for which Judas had betrayed Jesus. And I said to her the guy had a lot of money, you could have asked him to give $30,000 to the rape crisis center. She said you know, I didn't even think that the money was symbolic, but there is and people should know about this. It's not nearly as well known as it should be.

Dr. Judith Herman:

The Victims of Crime Act has a provision it should be. The Victims of Crime Act has a provision. It created what's called a trust fund, which is a fund not based on taxpayer revenues but on fines levied on convicted offenders, unconvicted offenders, and the money goes into a big pot which is then distributed. There's both on the federal level and then there are state level, and survivor representatives sit on the advisory boards that determine how the funds are allocated. So it's like offenders as a group giving back to victims as a group yes, but there's not that sort of personal your offender giving money to you yeah. It also eliminates the thing that for civil damages, some offenders have lots of money and a lot of them don't have any money.

Dr. Judith Herman:

So, and the monies will go for three things Direct victim compensation for time lost from work or medical expenses. It also pays salaries for victim witness advocates in the courts Good. It also pays salaries for victim witness advocates in the courts Good. And a lot of grant funds go to victim services like women's shelters, rape crisis centers.

Dr. Judith Herman:

At our Victims of Violence program for years we had focus support for a free homicide bereavement service that includes home visiting and support groups. We had money for hospital-based victim advocates, which I think is a great idea, you know, to have an advocate in the emergency room that when you see the advocate the dogs don't know how to get a restraining order or how to link victims up with services, but the advocates do, and the advocates will either accompany the victim to court and things like that. So we had the hospital-based advocates and then for a while we also had a community crisis service that trained community volunteers so that when there was something like a shooting in a school they could have a crisis response that wasn't just some strange professional parachuting in, but where community organizations could provide some direction to organize a crisis response. So it was a very creative way to hold perpetrators as a group accountable to make restitution.

Lisa Danylchuk:

And for victims to be able to receive the support without that direct line to someone who harmed them, or feeling that the money is tainted or somehow not wanting to ask that right.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Yeah, because a lot of people want anything to do with this person.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah, yeah, no connection. Yeah, yeah, so you learned so much from these victims you've interviewed, from people you've supported throughout your career? Was there anything surprising that came up in these interviews that you learned from victims that, even with all all your experience, caught you off guard?

Dr. Judith Herman:

I was actually a little bit surprised, although not totally, because victims are so often stereotyped as vengeful or just out for money or, you know, just out for blood. I did ask I mean, these were semi-structured interviews I, you know, mostly just said if you could write the script and you had the power to dictate exactly what happened, what would be ideal, what would represent justice in your mind? But I did ask specifically about revenge, because in our criminal justice system victims are quite marginal. It's the state that's considered the injured party and that's why the prosecutor has the power to decide whether to go forward with pressing charges, and a lot of the rationale for that is that if you left it to victims there would just be blood feuds.

Dr. Judith Herman:

I did a training, a day-long course, one time at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting, with a very well-known forensic psychiatrist about how to be an expert witness in court. He opened the morning session with. He put up a great big side of the Hatfields of the McCoys, these mountain men with their mustaches and their rifles across their knees, looking very fierce, and he said why do we have courts? You may naively think that we have courts to read out justice or to establish the truth. The real reason is so that we can resolve disputes without firearms.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Okay, is so that we can resolve disputes without fireworks, okay, and he said so.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Anything short of that is you know it's an adversarial system and so be prepared to be verbally attacked and humiliated and you know if you have any skeletons in your closet.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Forget about being an expert witness, because anything short of a physical attack is allowed. A physical attack is allowed, yeah, but the state is in charge, because if you didn't have the state in charge, you'd have the Hatfields and the McCoys, and so that's the stereotype that victims are going to be much more bloodthirsty and out for revenge than a judge or a jury. So I did ask all my informants about revenge, and they all have revenge fantasies, but mostly they hated their revenge fantasies. They felt like this isn't really me. This is like a disgusting residue of seeing the hate up close. In fact, the woman artist I described when I asked her about revenge fantasy, she said she'd had these nightmares all the time where she was shooting the rapist. She had one where a dinosaur came and tromped on the rapist, and in her dreams she was delighted, and when she woke up she was disgusted and felt like, oh, this is the last thing I want in my life.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah, more violence.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Interestingly enough, her husband. I interviewed him also. He was not ambivalent about his revenge fantasies at all. Yeah, he wanted to kill the guy, yeah, and I found that to be fairly generally true that the victims, who had really seen this up close, didn't want any part of it, yeah, and felt very ashamed of their own revenge fantasies and like they were ego, alien. And, in fact, one of the nice things that happens in that we do a lot of group therapy because, again, groups, small groups, survivor groups, are just so healing. But if they're well structured and well run and one of the things that happens often late in the group, when people have bonded sufficiently, is they each other's revenge fantasies. I have a transcript of one meeting where this woman says first she says she'd just like to scratch his face, and the other group members say, really, is that all Well? Actually, is that all Well? Actually I had this idea about getting a baseball bat and kneecapping him, and so then the group goes yeah well, maybe you should do that with the bus coming.

Lisa Danylchuk:

I love the fierce protective anger on the other person you know, and by that time they're all laughing hysterically because it becomes funny instead of a burden.

Dr. Judith Herman:

It becomes sort of like they know they're just fantasies, they know that it's silly, but they can have a laugh together.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah, since it's a fantasy, why not bring a bus?

Lisa Danylchuk:

yeah, yeah that they were less vengeful than, oftentimes, their family members or loved ones, who didn't feel ambivalent about wanting revenge yeah, I'm curious, just being in the place you are, now, having written such influential books, trauma and recovery, truth and repair, doing such important work for so many decades, do you feel a sense of accomplishment, fulfillment, pride in that, and or do you feel a sense of restlessness, wanting things to be better, wishing everything could be further along? I would say both. Yeah. So if you could write it right you've listened to survivors share.

Lisa Danylchuk:

If they could write what would happen for them in the justice system, if you could write how things would change in society, in the justice system, in mental health, what would be your narrative, your vision for, let's just say, the next 50 years? I'm not sure we have that long, but from 1975 to now we went from not having a word for trauma to having a good amount of research and understanding and there's some traction. Yes, it's one step forward, 10 steps back sometimes. But even if you wanted to be utopian about it and in 50 years everything were resolved, what would that look like?

Dr. Judith Herman:

That's a tall order. But I would say, in the mental health system, medicare for all and much more investment in community mental health prevention, including child abuse prevention and sexual assault prevention, which, you know, we have good models that are very effective. Home visiting for the first year of life for first-time mothers the payoff 20 years down the line is extraordinary, yeah, but politicians don't think 20 years ahead. They think for the next budget cycle, you know. And how do you sell something that didn't happen or isn't going to happen 20 years from now? So in the justice system, I do think there's some promising hybrid models that integrate some restorative justice principles with a retributive justice framework and allow more victim participation, more, again, prevention and rehabilitation rather than punishment-oriented interventions.

Dr. Judith Herman:

You know the prison system that we have besides being absolutely useless for rehabilitation or close to it, it's extremely expensive. Yes, so it's time to try something else. And, more generally, in terms of democracy movements worldwide, I have to think it's now or never, because I do think we are at an existential moment where the triumph of oligarchy does mean the destruction of the planet. Yeah, high stakes. So, yeah, that's total order, but I think you do have to have some idea of where you'd like to go.

Lisa Danylchuk:

So that we can, like you were saying, coming back to a support group, coming back to your local community I think there are people listening to this who have positions of power in their local community, whether they're doing community therapy or they're working with juvenile justice or they're in schools or different systems. So, yeah, keeping your eye on the prize and knowing let's look at these harmful power dynamics and let's create something different. Let's invoke mutuality and care and you mentioned respect and I think also, you know Dr Donna Hicks breaks it down with elements of dignity right that we can look for in practice and that can be really grounding. Especially when there are high stakes and there's a lot going on that can make us feel fearful. Having a way to act and some place to go can be really helpful.

Dr. Judith Herman:

My mama used to say activism is the antidote to despair. Absolutely, my mama was always right.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah, shout out to your mama Was she a strong influence on you? I'd imagine so, based on that comment. Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful.

Dr. Judith Herman:

She was a psychology researcher and psychologist.

Lisa Danylchuk:

I didn't know that. Nice Generation, american born. So yeah, my mom's a psychologist too. We have that in common, oh interesting, her name was Helen Black-Lewis. Helen Black-Lewis. Have you written much about her, or I?

Dr. Judith Herman:

wrote a little memoir piece about her. Oh, I didn't know that. What's it called? I can send it to you.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah, yeah, I'll put a link in the show notes too, so people can find that if it's available. Yeah, yeah, I'll put a link in the show notes too, so people can find that, if it's available online Wonderful. So if folks listening I mean most people listening are familiar with trauma and recovery, are familiar with your work, if people want to follow your work beyond reading your books, is there anywhere else a website you would direct them to?

Dr. Judith Herman:

Well, I don't do any social media, I'm very 20th century but my colleague Frank Putnam and I have been doing a blog called what is Happening to Mental Health Care for Psychology Today.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Nice.

Dr. Judith Herman:

That's one place.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Wonderful you and Frank Putnam.

Dr. Judith Herman:

That's amazing and also a contributor to a book edited by a psychiatrist named Bandy Lee that's called the Dangerous Case of Donald Trump okay, and that's available online, I imagine, yeah, yeah and it originally came out in 2017. It's now the third edition. You can get it on Amazon and paperback.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Good to know what brings you hope these days.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Well, as I say, the people I've worked with all these years, if you're going to get involved to try to make world a better place, the people you work with are wonderful I once was working for an organization that taught yoga in juvenile justice centers and they did a film and at the end of the film was just a scroll of the name of non-profits that had collaborated and were highlighted and were doing this amazing work, and we sat in the theater for it felt like 30 minutes.

Lisa Danylchuk:

It was just organization after organization and name after name of these people investing their lives in change, and I feel like we can get distracted. If you turn on the news, it's just conflict and conflict and we don't see. If you turn on the news, it's just conflict and conflict and we don't see. It's not always in front of our faces to see how many people are dedicating their lives to healing, and that's part of my goal with this podcast is just to bring those conversations to the forefront of our minds, like honoring you and the work that you've done and Frank Putnam and all these amazing people who really care right, Like really, truly, genuinely care about other humans Coming out soon called Old Before their Time, and it's a memoir of all his work as a child abuse doctor, his research, of his activism.

Lisa Danylchuk:

Yeah. So let's bring that to the forefront of our minds and just celebrate that. So I want to thank you for coming on the show and talking with me and sharing your work and your voice all these years. It's been an inspiration for me and my work and so many people I know. So I want to acknowledge and honor and thank you for all the dedication and care you've put into your work.

Dr. Judith Herman:

Well, thank you for what you're doing. It's been a pleasure, thank you.