Psychology / Ken Miller
Telling Their Story

By Cynthia Peters

In 2006, despite years of working with communities affected by war, Associate Professor of Psychology Ken Miller was overwhelmed as he learned the details of a tragedy suffered by the small village of Gongala, Sri Lanka. In a single night, 54 people were murdered. Eight years later, the villagers were still leaving every night to sleep in the jungle or other villages and returning each day. “At the time,” says Miller, “I couldn’t think of anything as a psychologist that I could do. I just wanted to tell their story or create a way for them to tell their story.”

He returned the following summer to make a film about the village’s experience, the impact of war-related loss over time and how people heal—or don’t. “The massacre was particularly brutal,” says Miller. “It’s eight years later. What happens to people?”

In Gongala, he notes, “everything is understood in a Buddhist framework. How to deal with the loss and what they need to do to heal is part of that framework. That the victims must have done something bad in a previous life is a common belief. So, one important coping strategy is using the Buddhist ritual of alms-giving. By preparing a meal for the monks in the local temple, the villagers hope to create good karma so that the relatives who were killed won’t suffer like that again.

“Culture plays almost no role in how we in the West understand and treat trauma and loss. What this means is that there is a big mismatch in how we attempt to treat trauma and loss and what could be helpful. … If we go in with just the Western clinical mindset, we’re missing something profound.”