Splits gone awry

{Admin note: The system shows Kozan as this thread's author, only because his post was first in the sequence moved here. Lise created it.]



This is a perfectly understandable topic split from its original home under the Theory and Practice forum--and the Institutional Trauma topic thread.

This new thread is an important topic in its own right, and deserves a thorough going exploration.

At the same time, I hope that Kaizan, and anyone else who would like to preserve their thoughts as part of the Institutional Trauma thread, will consider copying and reposting back to that thread as well.

It seems to me that much of what we share on this forum ultimately pertains to what I perceive and think of as the dynamic of institutional trauma. (Of course, this is my own bias!) If this has some truth, then category distinctions might not be so important--except to the extent that they facilitate clarity and continuity (which I fully support!).

I think that we can never have too much diversity of opinion and viewpoint!!

Kozan
I agree completely. Also my post needs to have the full text of my spiritual and emotional intelligence post from my introduction thread. It doesn't make sense for people to have to hunt that essential part in the introduction thread, not even knowing where it is. I will try to redo that tonight. This will be re posted to the institutional trauma thread. Admin: Please allow this. I believe this is a very important point and both posts need to be together to make the point clear. As Kozan stated, it is pertinent to institutional trauma.
Thanks

Kozan and Kaizan, I understand your position and agree we need to have continuity and ease of reference. I take responsibility for the results of this thread splitting, as the mods are trying to carry out forum guidelines as I have expressed them, which I don't always communicate well. I did see your re-posting to the Institutional Trauma thread and no one will be moving it.

In regard to this thread, just to let all know in advance, I will be removing this post of my own and the two above, later today after regular forum readers have had a chance to see the issues. This is in keeping with the intent to stay on topic with "why did you separate from the OBC". I would ask members to be aware that this is now a dedicated topic, per moderators' request, asking a specific question, thus posts should stay on track with addressing the stated purpose.

If anybody feels that Kozan's, Kaizan's and my last post here should be saved and moved to a new thread instead of being deleted, I'm happy to do it, just let me know.

Lise

We had a request to keep these posts, so here they are.

I haven't introduced myself here yet, but for now I want to own up to my part in the thread split. It was my idea to remove Kaizan's re-post of his Spiritual/Emotional material and replace with a citation. A link would've been better; IMO that's easier on readers than re-posting lengthy verbiage. But I too am sorry for the disruption and my contribution to it.

About the posts following Polly's (her answer to Seikai). I saw something about issues becoming polarized and thought "what's wrong with that?". It's part of what happens here. I didn't get that Polly's post asked for teaching or a fix. She was telling her story, and yes that can be polarizing, but it doesn't necessarily need anyone to step in and fix or explain away the situation. Pointing to institutional trauma and spiritual intelligence, in that thread, felt like a shift of attention away from something equally important to be looked at. Maybe it's just me, but that's what I took away from it. I don't mean this as criticism, it's an observation. I've read the forum since it started and from the beginning, the institutional trauma idea was brought up repeatedly in response to almost any post about any problem. And it could very well be true and applicable in almost any situation. I just hope we don't get into a mode here of repeating theories, even though they are worthwhile, as a "fix" to problems that people want to discuss.

I think this first post got away from me

I hope I didn't offend anyone too much. Back to the moderator dungeon.

Sarah

Hi Sarah, great to see you stepping out from behind the scenes! And thank you for your candor regarding the thread split.

The issue of polarization was raised by Kaizan in the third post following Polly's response to Rev. Seikai's post. In my perception, Kaizan's comments were not made in specific response to Polly's post at all, but a response springboarding from a comment that I made in my response to Rev. Seikai. In my comment I referred to a "great divide" between two ends of the continuous spectrum of viewpoints that I observe on the forum--in order to be able to characterize my own viewpoint as an effort to straddle both.

I think that Kaizan took the opportunity to respond to my comment in order to step back and look at the larger context of issues around institutional trauma and to tie them together with his articulation of spiritual and emotional inteligence and their roles in healing. So, I would have to conclude that he was not diverting attention from Poly's experience, offering teaching to her, or trying to fix it.

It is true that a fair number of people have reported experiences within the OBC that they found to be distressing--and sometimes traumatizing. These reports go back to the near beginning of this forum. The term institutional trauma however, is one that I coined only a month ago to suggest that not only individuals and large groups of people can become traumatized, but that perhaps small organizations can unconsciously institutionalize patterns of trauma, which are then unintentionally repeated, thereby traumatizing others as well. Neither Diana nor I had encountered the term previously. I first used the term institutionalized trauma in a response to Howard's reply on Rev. Seikai's Introduction thread, which I posted on September 2nd. I have yet to post my full hypothesis of the dynamic.

I have come to suspect that what I see as a likely pattern of institutional trauma within the OBC, may be connected to much of the distress experienced and reported in this forum. This does not in any way mean that anyone's experience, or issues identified, can be reduced to institutional trauma, even if it does exist as a causal factor.

I don't believe that an understanding of any causal dynamic, including that of trauma, is, ever by itself, a "fix".

The thread split may have caused some disruption, but in the end (well, actually by next week :-) it will fade to a minor blip at most. At the risk of sounding cliched, I have no doubt that it will lead to good new insight expressed on the forum that might not otherwise occur!

So Sarah, I hope you don't spend too much time in moderator dungeon! It is good to have you, Watson, and Robert here as moderators, to give Lise a hand managing the disruption that some of the rest of us on the forum sometimes cause (or at least, that I do)! I for one, am very grateful for your presence.

You're right, Kozan, the trauma term is a recent addition, but the references to institutional fears and flaws have been a constant theme, often following someone else's post about a tough experience. I think we disagree on what we're seeing. No harm in that.

Sarah

Indeed. No harm at all.