VFH Violence & Community Center
Healing Resources
Advice From Your Sisters
When the Center on Violence and Community began, many people said, "I didn't experience violence, but what you say about trauma makes sense to me." The traumas of illness, clinical depression, accidents, disasters, loss and more come to all of us, and all traumas are in some ways the same. In this spirit we publish our largest regular volume, Tough Times Companion, and produce occasional special resources, like Advice From Your Sisters, a discussion with breast cancer survivors.
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Surviving War
Surviving War, a collection of poetry, essays, and photographs addressing war experience, is designed to help active duty soldiers and veterans understand and accept their experiences in war, and to ease their transition into civilian life.
The poetry, essays, and photographs in Surviving War are nearly all by military personnel or their families, and encompass wars from WWI to Iraq and Afghanistan. Their reflections on violence and war and the persistence of the human spirit acknowledge the horrors and difficulties of war while also recognizing its place in the conduct of human affairs.
Purchase a Copy Now (Lulu)
Tough Times Companion
The Center has a busy publications program, producing materials for use by survivor groups, theoretical pieces, books, and occasional publications. Foremost of these is Tough Times Companion, produced biennially, a collection of poetry, photography, and essays for people suffering difficult times. It is available free and distributed to hospitals, shelters, clinics, sexual assault centers, and doctors’ offices.
Order a copy in the VFH Store (you only pay shipping)
Request a free copy now via email
After Violence
Also available for public use are the After Violence series, small pamphlets that explore the different pains of living after war and other violence, and suggest how people might deal with them.
- An Odd Set of Problems (pdf)
- Loneliness (pdf)
- Telling is Watering the Flower of Sadness (pdf)
- Winter (pdf)
Essays
Over the years, the Center has contributed to perspectives on violence in the new field of violence studies. Here are several pieces that represent the Center perspective, written by the founding director, Roberta Culbertson.
- War and the Nature of Ultimate Things (doc)
- Rebuilding After War as a Humanities Question (doc)
- Charting the Natural Consequences of War (doc)
- The Shamanic and the Experience of Violence (doc)
