BOOK REVIEW Creating Sanctuary - Toward the Evolution of Sane Societies by Sandra Bloom

Creating Sanctuary  - Toward the Evolution of Sane Societies  by Sandra Bloom  1997, Routledge Publishing

Creating Sanctuary is an excellent book to have on the shelf at any program providing support to victims of complex trauma.  Sandra Bloom’s book is over ten years old but I found it to be a refreshing look at trauma and how organizations can build and sustain a sanctuary for victims. 

According to her biography on the Drexel University website, Dr. Sandra L. Bloom is a Board-Certified psychiatrist, graduate of Temple University School of Medicine and recently was awarded the Temple University School of Medicine Alumni Achievement Award. In addition to her faculty position at the School of Public Health at Drexel, she is President of CommunityWorks, an organizational consulting firm committed to the development of nonviolent environments. Dr. Bloom currently serves as Distinguished Fellow of the Andrus Children’s Center in Yonkers, NY.
From 1980-2001, Dr. Bloom served as Founder and Executive Director of the Sanctuary programs (see link at left), inpatient psychiatric programs for the treatment of trauma-related emotional disorders. n partnership with Andrus Children’s Center, Dr. Bloom has established a training institute, the Sanctuary Leadership Development Institute, to train a wide variety of programs in the Sanctuary Model®. The Sanctuary Model® is now being applied in residential treatment programs for children, domestic violence shelters, group homes, homeless shelters and is being used in other settings as a method of organizational development.
Dr. Bloom is a Past-President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and in addition to being the author of Creating Sanctuary: Toward the Evolution of Sane Societies and she is co-author of Bearing Witness: Violence and Collective Responsibility.

This highly readable book is broken down into five sections.  Section one is a comprehensive view of trauma theory that reviews the research done by a number of experts in the field of trauma and neuroscience.  She includes the physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and behavioral responses and discusses the innate need for the survivor to make meaning out of the trauma that has occurred.  By telling the stories of trauma survivors, Dr. Bloom demonstrates how a victim’s life can become completely organized around trauma in their thoughts, feelings, behavior and meaning making.  Section Two responds to the question “if traumatic experience is so damaging, and human history has been so traumatic, how have we survived and thrived?” by explaining how our attachments to each other and our social groups that follow us from cradle to grave help survivors heal from trauma.  Section Three discusses the social in psychiatry and how some treatment milieus and concepts have not served trauma survivors well.  Dr. Bloom speaks to the impact that feminist theory has had on psychiatry and how it facilitated a shift to a more relational and empowerment based model of meeting the needs of trauma survivors.

In sections four and five, Dr. Bloom takes the reader beyond the usual scope of trauma as an interpersonal issue that is healed within one to one relationships and encourages us to examine reconstruction society as a whole within a sanctuary model.  She lists shared assumptions that encourage the reader to look beyond diagnosing and treating to engaging in the creation of healing sanctuaries.  This includes assessing burnout, vicarious trauma, and practices within the organization that may limit the abilities of advocates and others in providing support.  

The last section, “Toward the Evolution of Sane Societies”, documents the significant trauma that occurs within society as a whole and addresses how the world at large contributes to trauma.  This book was written well before September 11, 2001 and it would be interesting to have an update in regards to Dr. Bloom sees the terrorism and the responses of our government as contributing to the traumatization of individuals and societies. According to Dr. Bloom, the globalization of trauma and the effects on individuals needs to be addressed beyond the scope of individual organizations.  It requires social changes, changes in the way we do business, changes in the classroom, recognizing justice as a force for healing trauma, creating an emotionally literate population, and being willing to bear witness and move beyond just being a bystander.

The depth of this book in addressing the issue of trauma can at times be overwhelming and challenging.  However, Dr. Bloom does an excellent job of outlining the issues surrounding traumatized societies and addressing it by creating a model for sanctuary in our organizations, social service agencies, and political institutions.

This book is being added to the NHCADSV library and is also available on Amazon.com or through your local bookseller.