Are we numb? Handling the collective trauma of police violence, mass shootings and a pandemic
By Matt Villano A reckoning with the deaths resulting from institutionalized racism, a resurgence of almost-daily gun violence and 3.1 million pandemic deaths worldwide, there has been trauma piled upon trauma upon trauma. It turns out these collective traumas are taking a toll on all of us, according to Roxane Cohen Silver, a professor of psychological science, medicine and mental health at the University of California, Irvine. Over the course of her 40-year career, Silver has studied the effects of trauma on individuals and on society as a collective whole. The traumas of the past year — which are ongoing