Trauma is a common experience for people living in SA today. Whether we use the word trauma, we often find ourselves in conversations where we describe our realities with emotions that point to a deep sense of pain, disappointment, mistrust and the destruction of our being and livelihood.

A feeling of betrayal appears central to what it means to live in a post-apartheid SA. Hopelessness weighs too many of us down in ways that scar us. Violence was and remains a norm in SA, with new forms of trauma seeming to crop up daily...