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Are You Listening Yet?: The Ethics of Bearing Witness to Trauma

“Tell your story” has become a familiar response to trauma. Survivors are encouraged to speak as a way to reclaim their voices, educate others, and begin to heal. Although disclosure like this can be meaningful, this message also contains an assumption: that speaking is always therapeutic and that a survivor’s story will be taken seriously and received with care. Testimony can instead expose a person to disbelief, judgement, unwanted scrutiny, or pressure to make suffering understandable to others. Bearing witness, therefore, cannot mean merely allowing someone to speak. It requires examination as to who is treated as credible, what listeners demand from traumatic narratives, and what responsibilities follow once those narratives have been voiced out loud and heard.

Because I had already read Elie Wiesel’s Night in high school and again as an undergraduate, I was familiar with its events. What affected me differently this time around was the failure of listening that occurs before Eliezer and his family are deported. Moshe the Beadle survives a mass execution and returns to Sighet to warn others. He tells the community what he witnessed, but his testimony is dismissed as the ramblings of a madman. The problem here is not that Moshe cannot speak. The problem is that the truth that he is communicating is far more disruptive than the community is prepared to accept. Believing him would require people to reconsider their safety, abandon familiar (and comforting) routines, and take action without knowing whether escape would even succeed. It is easier for them to diagnose something wrong with Moshe than it is to recognize that something has gone catastrophically wrong with the world around them (Wiesel, 2006).

Philosopher Miranda Fricker’s concept of testimonial injustice helps explain this failure. Testimonial injustice occurs when prejudice causes a listener to assign less credibility to a speaker than that person deserves. The harm is not limited to reaching an incorrect conclusion; the speaker is also treated as incapable of contributing knowledge about their own experience. Moshe’s poverty, eccentricity, and visibly traumatized state make him easy to discredit. His distress, which should  help communicate the severity of what he witnessed, is interpreted as evidence that his account is unreliable. The community’s response demonstrates how trauma can create a credibility trap: survivors may be doubted because they appear too emotional, but they may also be doubted if they appear detached or insufficiently emotional (Fricker, 2007). 

This raises an uncomfortable question: Do people truly want to hear about trauma, or do they want a version that doesn’t threaten their assumptions? Public conversations often reward survivors whose narratives are chronological, controlled, and ultimately hopeful. A story of suffering that ends with resilience offers listeners a reassuring conclusion. It suggests that trauma can be overcome through courage and personal strength. However, not all trauma produces a coherent narrative, and not every survivor has such a clean cut recovery process. Demanding clarity, consistency, or inspiration may make testimonies easier to consume, but it can also replace the survivor’s experience with the listener’s preferred version of it. 

Laub (1992) argues that listening to trauma requires attention not only to what is articulated, but also to what is not: silence, hesitation, contradiction, and all of which can't yet be put into words. A person might remember sensory details intensely while struggling with chronology, or perhaps return repeatedly to one fragment while other parts of the memory remain inaccessible. An ethical listener shouldn’t automatically treat these features as evidence of deception. At the same time, respecting the complexity of traumatic memories does not require also abandoning questions of factual accuracy. Historical, clinical, and legal institutions may have legitimate reasons to seek clarification and corroboration. The challenge is to investigate without assuming the survivor’s discombobulation disqualifies them from being a credible witness. 

This distinction reveals a limitation of the language of “believing survivors.” Belief is ethically significant, particularly when prejudice has historically caused certain groups to be ignored. Yet responsible witnessing can’t mean accepting every interpretation or factual claim without examination. It should mean beginning from a position of respect rather than suspicion- a variant of the phrase “innocent until proven guilty.” This includes avoiding credibility judgements based on stereotypes, and separating requests for clarification from attacks on a person’s character. A trauma-informed response does not promise that every account will be interpreted exactly as the speaker wishes. It promises that the speaker will not be treated as disposable, irrational, or morally suspect simply because the experience is difficult to narrate.

Research on social responses to trauma reinforces the importance of this distinction. Lis-Turlejska et al. (2018) studied elderly Polish survivors of World War II and found that a perceived lack of social acknowledgement was associated with greater symptoms of posttraumatic stress and depression. This does not prove that social rejection directly causes those symptoms, nor does it mean acknowledgement alone can resolve severe trauma. The study was correlational and relied on self-reported experiences, so its findings should not be interpreted as a simple cause/effect relationship. Nevertheless, it suggests that trauma is not exclusively an internal psychological condition. Recovery can be shaped by whether families, communities, and institutions recognize what occurred. 

Recognition, however, is not necessarily the same as support. Relyea and Ullman (2015) distinguish between openly hostile reactions to sexual-assault disclosures and “unsupportive acknowledgement,” in which someone accepts that the assault occurred but responds in ways that fail to meet the survivor’s needs. A listener might believe the disclosure whilst also minimizing its impact, attempting to control what the survivor does next, demanding more details, or offering unsolicited advice. In their study, almost all participants reported experiencing some form of acknowledgement without sufficient support, and these reactions were associated with harmful psychological and coping outcomes. The findings complicate the idea that saying “I believe you” is the end of an ethical response- it may in fact only be the beginning. 

Listening can also become exploitative when survivors are expected to disclose for the benefit of institutions or audiences. Schools may ask survivors to educate their peers. Media outlets may emphasize or glamourize the most graphic or emotional details. Courts may require people to repeat painful experiences while subjecting minor inconsistencies to intense public scrutiny. Even well-intentioned listeners may search for lessons about hope or forgiveness that the survivor doesn’t wish to provide. Under these circumstances, testimony risks becoming a performance of suffering.

Cultural competency further complicates the assumption that disclosure is universally desirable. Cultures differ in how they understand privacy, family responsibilities, emotional expression, mental health, and the public discussion of violence. Silence may sometimes stem from fear or stigma, but it can also be an intentional boundary, form of self-protection, or a culturally meaningful way to manage suffering. Treating verbal disclosure as the only healthy response risks imposing one cultural model of healing on everyone. Trauma-informed practice should make testimony possible without making it compulsory.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration identifies safety, trustworthiness, collaboration, empowerment, choice, peer support, and attention to cultural and historical context as central features of a trauma-informed approach. Applied to witnessing, these principles shift control away from the listener. Instead of demanding a complete story, a responsible listener might ask what the person wants from the conversation, whether practical help is needed, what details they are comfortable sharing, and what should remain private. The objective is not to extract the most complete account possible. It is to avoid reproducing the powerlessness that often characterizes trauma in the first place (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2014).

Ordinary Men introduces another necessary limitation: listening to testimony does not mean suspending moral judgement, and all testimonies do not occupy the same ethical space. Browning (1992) relies on postwar interrogations and statements from members of Police Battalion 101 to reconstruct their participation in mass murder. Their accounts are historically important, but they are also shaped by self-interest, hindsight, selective memory, and attempts to reduce personal responsibility. Browning listens to the perpetrators in order to understand them, not to absolve them.

This matters because trauma language can blur morally essential distinctions. Some members of the battalion may have experienced distress or lasting psychological consequences after participating in executions. Their suffering can be acknowledged without equating it with the suffering of their victims. The fact that committing violence may traumatize a perpetrator doesn’t transform that perpetrator into another type of victim or erase the choices that produced that harm. Ethical witnessing requires compassion, but it also requires attention to power, responsibility, and whose suffering is at the center.

Taken together, Night, Ordinary Men, and trauma research suggest that bearing witness is neither passive, nor morally simple. Survivors are not obligated to disclose, disclosure is not automatically healing, and acknowledgement without meaningful support may be insufficient. Listening responsibly means resisting prejudicial disbelief while also avoiding romanticization, coercion, or uncritical acceptance. It requires tolerating narratives that remain fragmented or unresolved and recognizing that the listener’s desire for certainty may conflict with the survivor’s need for autonomy.

Moshe the Beadle’s tragedy is not that the people of Sighet failed to believe him- it is that they heard his testimony without permitting it to change what they understood about their world or how they act. His experience demonstrates that listening becomes ethical only when it carries consequences. Bearing witness should lead us to protect the speaker’s agency, confront the conditions that produced the trauma, and consider what responsibility we now possess because we know. Otherwise, listening risks becoming another way of asking survivors to relive their pain while everyone else remains unchanged. 

References:

1. Browning, C. R. (1992). Ordinary men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. HarperCollins.
2. Laub, D. (1992). Bearing witness, or the vicissitudes of listening. In S. Felman and D. Laub, Testimony: Crises of witnessing in literature, psychoanalysis, and history (pp. 57–74). Routledge. https://hemisphericinstitute.org/images/courses/spring-2009/laub_bearingwitness.pdf
3. Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford University Press. https://web.flu.cas.cz/scan/323537766.pdf
4. Lis-Turlejska, M., Szumiał, S., & Drapała, I. (2018). Posttraumatic stress symptoms among Polish World War II survivors: The role of social acknowledgement. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 9(1), Article 1423831. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2018.1423831
5. Relyea, M., & Ullman, S. E. (2015). Unsupported or turned against: Understanding how two types of negative social reactions to sexual assault relate to postassault outcomes. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 39(1), 37–52. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684313512610
6. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2014). SAMHSA’s concept of trauma and guidance for a trauma-informed approach (HHS Publication No. SMA 14-4884).
7. Wiesel, E. (2006). Night (M. Wiesel, Trans.; 1st ed. of new translation). Hill and Wang. (Original work published 1958)

When Foster Care Becomes Family

I saw firsthand how childhood trauma can affect children. My grandparents ran a foster home and eventually adopted seven children. These kids became more than foster children to me; they became part of my family. One of the hardest parts was getting close to them, watching them become comfortable and feel safe, and then having to watch them go back to the same situations they came from. Every child had a different background and their own story. Some experienced neglect, abuse, instability, or other forms of trauma that no child should have to experience. It was extremely difficult to see a child finally feel safe and loved and then have to leave that environment. These experiences were very difficult for my family and me, and even more so for the foster child being affected.
The Body Keeps the Score helped me understand these experiences in a different way. Van der Kolk explains that trauma does not simply disappear when the traumatic event is over. It can affect how someone thinks, behaves, handles emotions, trusts people, and responds to stress. This is especially important with children because they may not know how to explain what they are feeling. A child who is acting out, shutting down, or having trouble trusting adults may not just be a “problem child.” There is usually a reason behind their behavior. Instead of asking, “What is wrong with this child?” we should ask, “What happened to this child?” I believe the foster care system needs to take this trauma-informed approach more seriously. Children should receive consistent support and mental health resources that focus on what they have experienced, rather than only focusing on their behavior.
Even though childhood trauma and foster care can be extremely difficult, I believe there is still a lot of hope. Children need stability, patience, and people who will continue to show up for them. My grandparents showed me how important that can be by opening their home to so many children and eventually adopting seven of them. They gave these kids a place where they could feel loved and supported. Their story taught me that trauma does not have to determine a child's entire future. With the right support, safe relationships, and people who believe in them, children can heal and have the opportunity to build a better life. Sometimes having just one person who refuses to give up on a child can make a bigger difference than we realize.

Balancing Safety and Compassion: Understanding Behavior Through a Trauma-Informed Lens

The other day, I was responsible for leading a reconciliation meeting between two young seven-year-olds who had gotten in a physical altercation in our dining hall at camp. I spoke with both campers individually, and it was clear that one had instigated the fight (let’s call her Fiona), while the other (we can call her Amelia) was defending herself. I explained to Fiona the importance and power of saying sorry. We practiced an apology, and I went to get Amelia to facilitate this relationship repair. This was, on a much smaller scale, an example of restorative justice, which is, “a process to involve, to the extent possible, those who have a stake in a specific offense and to collectively identify and address harms, needs, and obligations, in order to heal and put things as right as possible” (Rousseau, 2026). Rather than simply separating the girls or issuing consequences, it was important for Fiona to acknowledge the harm she had caused and give Amelia an opportunity to express how the incident affected her. The goal was not just punishment but repairing the relationship.

As I was bringing Amelia over to Fiona, she asked the following question: “Is she saying sorry because she’s actually sorry or because you told her she needs to say sorry?” Needless to say, this question stumped me. Yes, Fiona knew she had to apologize. Did she want to? No. But why did she not want to? Did she know that what she did was wrong, and so she was embarrassed to apologize? Or was she unaware of the true impact of her physicality? Amelia reminded me, though, that full reconciliation would not be possible unless Fiona really meant it. 

Ultimately, Fiona did apologize to Amelia, and we ended up eating dinner together, where Fiona and Amelia were calling each other “besties.” Just a day later, though, when Amelia took a pool ring from Fiona, Amelia once again resorted to physical violence. 

We ended up having to make the incredibly difficult decision to send Fiona home from camp after the two physical altercations and another escalation that resulted in her throwing hard objects at counselors. She couldn’t keep herself or others safe, and that is our top priority here at camp. 

What I just kept thinking, though, was, especially given this child’s history, that her actions may have reflected a trauma response. I think back to that behavioral iceberg model—a child’s behavior is their way of communicating their needs. What was this child trying to tell us? What was triggering her trauma response? What needs was she expressing? Rather than viewing her aggression simply as misconduct, I began to wonder whether it was a survival strategy that had once protected her. Van der Kolk explains that trauma can leave the brain in a constant state of vigilance, causing the amygdala to perceive threats even in situations that are objectively safe (2014). When this occurs, access to the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for reasoning, impulse control, and decision-making—can become impaired. Instead of thoughtfully responding to conflict, children may instinctively fight, flee, or freeze.

I understood that these intense emotional reactions may have been driven by her brain perceiving danger where none existed, limiting access to the prefrontal cortex and making thoughtful decision-making much more difficult. In these moments, it wasn’t that she didn’t want to regulate her emotions and make rational decisions; it was that she couldn’t. Ethically, this experience reminded me that trauma-informed care sometimes requires balancing one child's needs with the safety of an entire community.

What gives me hope, though, is that this child is still young and has an opportunity to develop coping skills and to work through her trauma, if given the right tools. I think back to restorative justice and Dan Reisel’s TED Talk, The Neuroscience of Restorative Justice. Reisel describes neuroplasticity as the brain's ability to form new neural connections throughout life. Building on this idea, he argues that empathy is not a fixed trait but a skill that can be strengthened through repeated opportunities to practice accountability, emotional regulation, and healthy relationships (Reisel, 2013).

While we at camp did not have the resources to support Fiona for the entire week, I like to think that we took a baby step in supporting her development of coping skills. There was one instance when Fiona shared that another camper had made her angry. Instead of hitting the camper, she told me, "I'm angry," put on her noise-canceling headphones, and went to her bed to color until she calmed down. While this may seem like a small victory, I saw it as evidence of exactly what Reisel describes. Fiona practiced a new response instead of relying on aggression. Even though she later struggled again, this moment demonstrated that change is possible and that healthier behavioral patterns can begin to replace old ones through repetition and support. Although the progress was inconsistent, healing from trauma is rarely linear, and this moment reminded me that success is often measured by small steps rather than complete transformation. In that sense, restorative justice is not simply about repairing a single conflict but about creating opportunities for individuals to practice empathy, accountability, and healthier ways of relating to others.

This course has changed the way I interpret challenging behavior. Instead of asking, "Why is this child acting this way?" I now find myself asking, "What happened to this child, and what is she trying to communicate?" While not every child can remain in an environment like camp safely, trauma-informed care reminds us that behavior is often an expression of unmet needs rather than simply defiance. Reisel's discussion of neuroplasticity reinforces that healing and behavioral change are possible because the brain remains capable of change throughout life (2013). Although our time together lasted only three days, I hope the coping strategies Fiona practiced at camp become the foundation for continued healing. While we could not change her past, I hope we contributed, even in a small way, to changing what comes next.

References:

Reisel, D. (2013). The neuroscience of restorative justice [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_reisel_the_neuroscience_of_restorative_justice

Rousseau, D. (2026). Trauma and Crisis Intervention [Course materials]. Boston University.

van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.