Event: Seminar: Trauma from relationships: A challenge in therapy and pastoral work
Date: Friday 25 November 2022
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Venue: Theology Board Room (Humanities A Building, Room 317)
Speaker: Prof. Dr Mariéle Wulf (Tilburg University - Netherlands)
Abstract
Abusive relationships are the main form of abuse nowadays. Vulnerability thus is a decisive factor on the way to abuse.
This vulnerability does not only exist in wrong relationships which are traumatising; it can grow by those relationships. Relationships as such are the main factor for developing resilience or vulnerability, for being open to grooming or to resisting on the way to traumatizing abuse. Victims who are vulnerable because of wrong relationships are weak in defence. It is crucial to understand the dynamism in a person who is traumatized by personal relationships in order to guarantee justice and to provide the right protection and help.
However, we may also be traumatised in structural relations. So, in addition, some remarks will be made on professional relationships contributing to structural vulnerability. What will be presented here may help one to see diverse aspects of abuse in the perspective of personal or structural relations, in order to respect them in and to heal them by therapeutic and pastoral relationships.