Subverting Trauma: Evidencing a need for trauma-informed principles in editing practice

Trauma-informed practice is a strengths-based framework that guides the service provisions of the Australian healthcare and education sectors. Based on Mental Health Australia’s (Kezelman, 2014) definition of trauma-informed care, the principles underpinning a trauma-informed approach to practice include safety, trustworthiness, opportunity for choice, collaboration, empowerment and respect for diversity. While there is significant research on trauma-informed care and trauma-informed pedagogy in both national and international contexts, there is a dearth of literature on trauma-informed editing practice. Given that writing itself is a vehicle for processing and sharing traumatic experience, the lack of directives around editing potentially traumatic content and working with authors who have histories of trauma is concerning, with risks of harm to both the author and editor if adequate provisions are not in place. This qualitative study reviews existing trauma-informed frameworks and conducts a field survey of practising editors who self-identify as working, or having worked, with traumatic material or trauma survivors. The use of trauma-informed tools in a creative industry necessitates a cultural and philosophical shift and the findings from this research corroborate the need for both formalised guidelines, and for future editors to be explicitly educated in these practices.