Nermin Soyalp
Organizational Psychologist, Learning & Development Consultant, and Researcher
Nermin Soyalp, PhD is an organizational psychologist and leadership consultant. She graduated from Hacettepe University (Ankara, Turkey) in Statistics, and later received her MA in Organizational Psychology at John F. Kennedy University. Nermin is a dialogue facilitator and educator for the nonprofit Healing the Wounds of History and holds a Ph.D. in Transformative Studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Facilitator: Co-creator and co-facilitator of Healing Generational Trauma, Conflict Transformation & Peace Building Training. Co-director of the nonprofit Healing the Wounds of History.
Ancestral Healing Practitioner: Practitioner in training with Ancestral Medicine.
Organizational Psychologist: Leadership and culture strategist for New York-based consulting firm Vega Factor. Vega Factor cracked the code of building high performing organizations and cultures, ranging from startups and nonprofits to Fortune 500 companies.
Historical Traumas
Among Armenians, Kurdish, and Turkish People of Anatolia
Transdisciplinary Perspective toward Reconciliation
by Nermin Soyalp
The deep wounds that exist from long-standing conflicts between Turks, Kurds, and Armenians have not yet been sufficiently addressed and healed. Nermin Soyalp explains the collective traumas and their significant psychosocial impacts in terms of the potential for reconciliation among these politically conflicted groups. Discussion centers on the transgenerational implications of the Balkan wars of 1912–1913, the Armenian genocide of 1915–1917, the Greco-Turco war of 1920–1922, the formation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the population exchange with the Balkans in 1924, the conflict between the Turkish government and Kurdish identity since the formation of the Republic, as well as the impacts of assimilation policies on minorities. Drawing on the complexities of history, psychology, and identity, this book elucidates how collectively and historically shared traumas become inherently more complex, and more difficult to address, generation by generation.
Epistemologies of ignorance in Turkey have suppressed the transgenerational experiences of trauma and prevented healing modalities. The Turkish state and society have consciously and unconsciously denied historical realities such as the Armenian genocide and Kurds’ ethnopolitical rights. The result is a collective dehumanization that fuels further trauma and conflicts. The collective traumas of Anatolia have impacted its society at multiple levels – psychological, physical, economic, cultural, political, and institutional. The author, a dialogue facilitator for the nonprofit Healing the Wounds of History organization, proposes systemic healing modalities that address the dynamics at play. The research that underpins this work is highly relevant to the healing of other historical and cultural traumas.
Nermin Soyalp employs the transdisciplinary framework afforded by Healing the Wounds of History workshops to heal people in Turkey and in the diaspora. And this is what has impressed me the most: Nermin has held these amazing workshops throughout the world, bringing Turks into the same space as their others, having them trade viewpoints to understand suffering fully. I hope that you will be as enthused in reading this book as I was—and still am—not only with Nermin’s brilliant analysis of historical traumas in Turkish history, but also by her ability, unlike the rest of us, to offer solutions to such suffering through her post-traumatic healing practices.
Perspective on the Historical Traumas of Anatolia
California Institute of Integral Studies, February 2020, San Francisco, CA
Nermin Soyalp, PhD
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Location
San Francisco, CA U.S.A.
Contact
NSOYALP@MYMAIL.CIIS.EDU