COMMENTARY: Healing in the Wake of Disaster: Storytelling, Oral Histories, and the Power of Circles

By: Christiana Best-Giacomini

August 26, 2025

As a social worker with more than thirty years of experience, I have practiced across all levels of intervention – micro, mezzo, and macro. At the micro level, I have supported individuals and couples in my private practice; at the mezzo level, I have facilitated women’s groups for many years; and at the macro level, I have engaged in policy development, administration, research, and social work education. Each dimension has informed my understanding of the others.

Hurricane Sandy: An Introduction to Disaster Trauma

In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New York City. As city workers were dispatched to emergency shelters, I volunteered at a school shelter in Jamaica, Queens. There, I encountered people from all walks of life facing some of the worst moments of their lives: displacement, family separation, and profound uncertainty. While I had years of experience working with trauma survivors, this was my first direct encounter with trauma rooted in natural disaster.

Hurricane Beryl: Returning as a Social Worker

Fast forward to July 2024. Hurricane Beryl swept across the Caribbean, echoing the devastation of earlier storms. Last month, I traveled to Grenada and Carriacou, partly for respite, partly to begin networking for an oral history project documenting survival and resilience in the storm’s aftermath.

I expected to be received primarily as a national who is also an educator and researcher, but my identity as a social worker emerged most powerfully. During a visit to Carriacou, I had a planned meeting with a woman to discuss the oral history project. Our conversation ended with her asking me to visit a nearby caregiving organization, where she knew the staff members had been struggling since the hurricane. Only then did I realize my visit coincided with the one-year anniversary of Beryl’s impact.

The Healing Circle

Without much time to prepare, I turned to my longtime colleague who accompanied me – a social worker with thirty-five years of experience, and almost in unison, we both said: “healing circle.” We had facilitated circles together before, after racially motivated killings and during COVID-19 when communities were cautiously beginning to gather again.

Together, we guided six women through the process of sharing their stories. They spoke of managing work responsibilities during the storm while worrying about families, and of ongoing rebuilding challenges. Some wept; others laughed nervously while describing persistent symptoms of depression and anxiety. They mourned loved ones who had died during or after the storm. Yet as we listened and reflected together, emphasizing both individual and communal strengths, we concluded by asking: “What gives you hope?”

Slowly, they began recalling moments of resilience, support from one another and their broader community, and strength drawn from family members, the Grenadian government, volunteers, and the diaspora worldwide. Word of the circle spread quickly, and staff members who had missed it expressed disappointment that we would not be returning. Their response affirmed what I already knew: healing circles are vital.

Why Healing Circles Matter

Healing circles draw from ancient communal practices across Indigenous, African, and Caribbean traditions. These intentional gatherings create spaces of equality where participants share pain and resilience through storytelling, deep listening, and collective affirmation. Unlike clinical therapy, circles operate with less hierarchy – everyone has a voice and serves as witness.

For social workers, healing circles are powerful because they validate individual suffering while building communal solidarity. They shift focus from “what happened to me” to “what happened to us,” fostering collective healing that transforms trauma into connection.

Healing Circles and Oral Histories: Shared Storytelling

Healing circles align closely with oral history practices. Both harness storytelling’s transformative power, inviting people to recount lived experiences within broader contexts. Healing circles accomplish this work collectively, with individual voices interweaving stories of pain, resilience, and survival.

Both practices resist erasure: oral histories preserve narratives for future generations, while healing circles honor and transform them in the present moment. Together, they affirm that storytellers are active agents whose voices carry profound meaning, not merely research subjects.

In the aftermath of disasters like Hurricane Beryl, weaving oral history methodology with healing circle practices offers a powerful dual approach – one that documents survival while simultaneously tending to emotional and spiritual healing. Both remind us that stories function as medicine and that bearing witness is itself an act of healing.

The Broader Lesson

We live in a world where trauma manifests across personal, communal, environmental, political, and social dimensions. Healing requires intentional spaces where people can gather, share openly, and receive validation. For social workers, healing circles are not simply therapeutic tools; they are essential practices that enable communities to move from pain toward resilience.

Natural disasters will continue to shape our world with increasing frequency and intensity, and social workers play a critical role in these contexts. From the devastation of hurricanes to the destruction caused by wildfires and floods, our responsibility extends beyond immediate response efforts to include long-term recovery and healing. Healing circles remind us that recovery is not only about rebuilding physical structures but also about fostering psychological and emotional well-being and restoring the social fabric of communities.

(Dr Christiana Best is an Associate Professor at the University of Saint Joseph, Connecticut)

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