I want to share a concept in my new book on trauma that is counter-intuitive. When disasters strike like shootings at schools/colleges, we often go on lockdown and then release kids to families or older students to their dorms or homes. We even shut down institutions. If the end of a school year is upon us, we wrap things up and folks depart. I think more attention needs to be paid to what I call “processing in place.” Instead of separating people, we need to focus on and foster community. Instead of going away, we need to go back and share with those who were there. Ponder the experience of soldiers when they get stateside and lose their buddies. Is that why vet suicides occur at VA hospital sites—the soldier is with others like them in some sense? In the case of UNC-Charlotte, the end of the semester is not trauma’s friend. Perhaps the university will extend the semester, allowing students, faculty and staff to process in place — if they want that. How we process in place isn’t a simple idea and if space is tainted, that’s problematic. More on those points later. But you can’t process in place if you aren’t in place — physically or perhaps virtually. Ponder the power of processing in place with me. …see more