Hi all,

Thanks for being here. The Open Letter to Thomas Hübl and The Collective Trauma Summit has been sent to Thomas and also to Richard Schwartz, a key host, speaker and leader of the Internal Family Systems Institute, along with a list of all 245 signatories so far (updated regularly here.) This includes Gabor Mate's signature (thank you) and message to leaders below:

"Notwithstanding my friendship with and undiminished personal regard for leading figures taking part in this Collective Trauma Conference, I feel compelled to add my voice publicly to those calling for the healing/therapeutic community to acknowledge and to address the unspeakable collective trauma that has been for decades inflicted on the people of Palestine, and especially in the past two years. A trauma witnessed and grieved by millions around the world."

So far there has been no response. 

Can you help? Two asks below:

1) The aim is to send the letter to all 40+ hosts and speakers at the Summit - can you help? If anyone has 20 minutes to spare in the next few days over the weekend to help populate this spreadsheet with all speaker names (listed on the Summit website) and contact details (available through online search) that would be of huge help. 20 minutes = around 2-3, so if 15-20 of us were able to chip in, that would be fantastic! Many hands make light work. I can then email out the letter to each one on Tuesday 28th. 

It's important that we let speakers know the letter continues to circulate and build supporters. Please do keep sharing! The Summit way well be over for this year, but it continues to sell lifetime access to its content and, as we know - it's an annual event. Plus, speakers continue to speak on other platforms including their own, leading trainings, workshops, seminars etc and continuing to contribute to the normalisation of silence. 

2) What would add extra weight to the letter is also having some further info on signatories' professional and organisational backgrounds (if possible and you are willing to share). Change . org doesn't enable collection of this and I couldn't find another platform to host this. If summit leaders and speakers see more and more psychotherapists, trauma healers and professionals in the wellness industry speak up, it adds extra credibility to the petition (that is not to discount anyone who isn't in that category - every single signature matters, and I mean it!) If you are, however, willing to add your professional info - please complete this spreadsheet with the extra details asap and I will update the substack list:

I plan to convene an online call in the week commencing 10th November for those of us who want to meet up and take this work forward to speak about next steps. I'll be in touch.  

Finally, sharing two comments from the online petition from two signatories who attended the summit this year - thank you for your insight and input. It is quite shocking but nonetheless helpful for extra context (Please do feel free to keep adding comments like these! They also help!)

gwi-seok, Waimanalo: 5 days ago

"Once again, I attended the summit this year. Once again, I experienced many gems and wonderful conversations. However, I expressed on Day 4 to Thomas and others, via IG, how devastated I was that no Palestinian faces and voices were included, especially since Thomas is in Tel Aviv, in the belly of the beast of the perpetrators of one of most public and brutal collective traumas of our generation. On Day 6, they finally did include Palestinian Rana Salman. But the conversation was so tentative and host Kosha Joubert's facilitation so "both sides-ist" that the urgency was lost and the compassion felt utterly empty. The focus was nonviolence and NOT Palestinian liberation. There was no acknowledgement that one side has a boot on the neck of the other, that 200+ Palestinians have been killed for every 1 Israeli. The Israeli hostages were lifted up but not the 12,000 Palestinian hostages. Why do Palestinians have to negotiate the end to the genocide inflicted on them? Why do they have to be peaceful, nonviolent angels in order to deserve life, and a home? Where is the support for RESISTANCE, which is totally in line with international law? And still, total silence from Thomas and everyone else. 💔😫😭"

Roisin, Downpatrick: 4 days ago

"I felt that it was critical that the summit would address the genocide in Gaza as healing can only begin when the wound is acknowledged, and so i waited for the palestinian/israeli talk with interest. ultimately, however I was shocked at the presenter's descriptions of the genocide as 'conflict' and 'war' as if both parties were equal adversaries, and not a civilian population being deliberately and brutally cleansed from their landscape - and especially at the accusation she made at the end of the talk saying that those who wanted to address the elephant in the room - the genocide- were in fact seeking to 'polarise' and, indeed ' pouring fuel on the fire'... I deeply feel that this is inaccurate, unfair and indeed an avoidance of the truth - unjust on the part of those who seek that justice. The parties in this talk were both working for the same end, as they both openly declared, working against the oppression and occupation of Palestine by the Israelis. To skirt around what this work might look like was very disappointing and rang false for me, tainting the conference which I had been very much enjoying with a deep feeling of unease, that an important opportunity had been missed and the systematic monstrous efforts of Israel to erase Palestinians had been brushed over with platitudes."

Irma x

irma.k.allen@gmail.com