In the book Truth and Repair (New York: Basic Books, 2023), psychologist Judith Lewis Herman continues the investigation into trauma she began in her previous book, Trauma and Recovery. In her 1992 book, she stated that trauma is not only a matter of individual psychology but of social justice. It is the social movements for human rights – such as those for the abolition of slavery, female emancipation, and racial equality – that will create the context in which it will be possible to name and, from this, be able to elaborate the notion of trauma. However, in the previous book, she covered three stages of trauma recovery focused on individual survival, while in Truth and Repair, she focuses on society’s responsibility. She called the latter the “fourth and final stage” of recovery, which is “justice.”

The book is divided into three parts, in addition to the introduction and conclusion: Power, Visions of Justice, and Healing. The author reports cases of abuse committed against women and children based on the testimonies of twenty-six women and four men who suffered the most diverse types of violence and sexual abuse and interviews with professionals who deal with these issues, and she elaborates on various aspects of justice and healing from the perspective of those who suffered abuse. The first part, on which I would like to focus my comments, is divided into three chapters: The Rules of Tyranny, The Rules of Equality, and Patriarchy.

Herman prefers to call witnesses “implicated subjects” to clarify that they are not “passive bystanders.” Often, they benefit from the oppression or, at least, help to perpetuate it. They can hurt the victim more than the abuser, as the victim expects support from them, and often, what she gets is indifference, if not blame. The author explains that crimes involving sexual violence divide the community as they affect the dynamics of dominance and subordination. Therefore, reporting these crimes means facing values ​​that structure our society while ignoring them is a way of ratifying this dynamic.

Following the same reasoning, the author states that trauma is an affliction of the disempowered; therefore, empowering victims of traumatic events is necessary. In this sense, the emphasis given to our patriarchal regime in the third chapter is entirely appropriate since male supremacy is its fundamental primacy. For this reason, it is necessary to recognize the distance between those traumatized by war and women victims of rape since, in the world as we know it, women are the base of the social pyramid.

The author states that “Tyranny is the antithesis of the Enlightenment concepts of liberty, equality, human rights, and the rule of law,” almost citing the motto of the French Revolution as the opposite of tyranny. However, if we think from a decolonial perspective, we can say that the tyranny of colonialism was born with Modernity, and its motto of freedom actually means freedom for equals (and slavery/subordination for “others”).

Herman also says that “there is no perfect democracy. The principle of equality is an ideal, never fully realized,” and cites, as an example, cases of the prevalence of racism in countries like the USA. In contrast, he states that rules of domination and subordination govern tyrannical societies. But, if we understand capitalism as an extension of colonialism, we can conclude that even capitalist democracies exercise tyranny against those at the bottom, and, just as since ancient Greece, democracy exists in its fullness only for a few.

If we live in a patriarchal society with well-defined hierarchies, which permits everything for white, cisgender, heterosexual men and reserves a subordinate role for the rest of the population, then, as interviewee Sarah rightly states, “Justice involves cultural change.”