Some traumatic events have a beginning and an end. Yet not all conflict unfolds in a single moment. Some crises are long, complex, and chronic, stretching across years and even generations. These traumas reshape the emotional landscape of individuals, fracture the psychological infrastructure of communities, and place enormous strain on the systems intended to provide care.
In contexts like these, the traditional understanding of trauma is no longer sufficient. In a recent seminar by American Friends of NATAL and ICA, “Resilience Under Pressure,” Professor Rivka Tuval-Mashiach talked about individual & collective trauma and reflections on collective healing.
The concept of rolling trauma
To describe this, Dr Boaz Shalgi, chief psychologist at NATAL, introduced the term “rolling trauma”. Unlike trauma that results from a single, acute event, rolling trauma reflects the accumulation of stress over time. One traumatic experience doesn’t resolve before the next one arrives. There is no pause, no moment to breathe. Instead, individuals and societies remain in a state of prolonged exposure, with each new crisis compounding the last. This continuous pressure leaves people suspended in an emotional and physiological state of survival, which profoundly affects mental health outcomes and treatment approaches. Anyone who has lived through a war, whether it’s a literal, armed conflict or a more personal battle inside the home knows what rolling trauma is like.
How individuals are affected
At the individual level, this translates to more than just elevated anxiety or fear. People report a wide range of symptoms that shift and intensify as time goes on. Sleep becomes fragmented. Emotional regulation weakens. Depression takes root not only as sadness, but as numbness and detachment. Somatic symptoms like headaches, fatigue, and muscle tension become common. People lose the ability to concentrate. They lose trust. They lose a sense of the future.
In this state, the line between resilience and depletion becomes thin. Individuals are no longer simply reacting to one traumatic incident. They are carrying the weight of multiple events layered atop one another, often without adequate time or support to process any of them. The psychological system, like an overburdened structure, begins to bend under the pressure.
The breakdown of community
At the same time, communities experience their own kind of trauma. Collective trauma manifests in the mourning of shared losses and in the breakdown of collective meaning. When trauma is pervasive, the usual sources of stability like schools, religious institutions, cultural traditions, and leadership structures, can become unstable themselves. In these moments, the community loses its ability to contain the emotional distress of its members. When everyone is affected, no one is left to bear witness from the outside.
The emotional fabric that holds a society together begins to wear thin. Trust in institutions may decline. Conversations become polarized. The future feels fragmented and abstract. In the absence of a shared narrative or reliable infrastructure, communities may struggle to organize their grief or move forward in unity.
The hidden cost to helpers
Another layer of impact, often overlooked, is the toll on those providing care. Therapists, educators, medical professionals, and community leaders are consistently called on to hold others while also navigating their own exposure to trauma. In environments of prolonged crisis, these carers face intense emotional demands without sufficient systems in place for their own self-care.
Burnout is a clinical concern and a structural one too. Many therapists report struggling with emotional fatigue, reduced empathy, and a sense of helplessness. Their professional roles require them to offer clarity, presence, and regulation, but the context they’re working in rarely allows for their own reflection, processing, or support. This results in a compounding effect: as communities struggle, so too do the people trying to serve them.
Erosion of collective resources
Beyond personal and community strain, there’s also the slow erosion of collective resources. Health systems become overstretched. Social services are underfunded or inconsistent. Non-profits and mental health organisations face overwhelming demand. The infrastructure meant to support recovery begins to show signs of stress, which in turn further destabilises individuals seeking help. When trauma is widespread, the safety nets intended to catch people can begin to fray.
Resilience looks different in long-term crisis
Yet, in spite of all this, something else persists alongside the suffering. Many individuals and communities demonstrate a quiet, determined kind of resilience. It does not look like triumph. It does not erase pain. But it takes shape in small, deliberate acts like checking in on a neighbour, creating new rituals, volunteering time, or redefining what it means to carry on. These forms of resilience are subtle but powerful. And in some cases, they mark the beginnings of what psychologists call post-traumatic growth.
People who experience growth in the aftermath, or even during, their trauma often speak of a deeper connection to their values, a clearer sense of what matters, or a renewed commitment to community. Growth and suffering are not opposites. They often exist together. And in the context of long-term conflict, it may be this coexistence that helps people retain a sense of agency and direction.
A shift towards integrated, enduring care
Still, growth cannot replace the need for better care. Sustained crises require sustained systems. What’s needed is not just more therapy, but more integrated approaches that combine mental health support with education, public policy, community programming, and institutional leadership. Clinicians cannot do this work alone. Healing from prolonged trauma must involve the systems that surround individuals and their families, schools, neighbourhoods, spiritual spaces, and governments.
Moving forward means recognising that recovery is not a linear path. It is cyclical, often uneven, and deeply relational. To support people in times of unending stress, care must be ongoing, adaptive, and culturally grounded. Therapists need to care for themselves. Communities need space to grieve, process, and rebuild. And institutions must be equipped not just to respond in moments of crisis, but to remain present in the long tail of its aftermath.
There is no quick resolution to trauma that unfolds without pause. But there can be structure. There can be compassion. There can be an ongoing commitment to maintain space, for individuals and communities alike, as they navigate the complicated and often invisible cost of living through a crisis that has no clear end.
Samantha Green, a psychology graduate from the University of Hertfordshire, has a keen interest in the fields of mental health, wellness, and lifestyle.