Your question is both critical and complex. I am convinced that RJ is linked to healing both at an individual and collective level. For the sake of brevity I will only mention two of the many overlaps between RJ and healing that I have experienced in applying RJ in post-war reconstruction.

1.) RJ processes enable psycho-social trauma healing to go forward. Let me make it clear, I am not saying that we can conflate the practices of RJ and trauma healing. What I am saying is that RJ provides a “safe-space” for all the parties affected by violence to speak and be given voice which is a critical component of healing. Some refer to this collective truth-telling exercise as “a place where society bears witness”. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, although not entirely restorative in nature, provided the space for this kind of national healing to begin.

2.) RJ processes provide a cohesive, alternative system of justice that allows people to deal with the past without violence – I refer to this as “Remembering without Revenge.” A well-facilitated RJ process will open up healthy communication channels and nurture stronger relational attachments which in turn builds trust and increased social capital. These are all recipes for containing cycles of violent retribution and opening up the possibilities of a collective undertaking to re-write historical narratives and reconstruct preferred realities of how a society wants to live together. This form of social ‘meaning-making’ that occurs in RJ is foundational to the healing path.

Post War Trauma is a subject of, for lack of a better word, interest to me. Not that I have interacted with people subject to war but I have had a number of discussions with riot-struck people in various states of India, where they have felt nothing less than war and coping up with the post-trauma symptoms is a big pain-point.

Does restorative justice as a concept involve the mental healing side of it? How?