Oprah Winfrey: ‘Past traumas show up despite our best efforts’

When TV celebrity Oprah Winfrey opened her school for girls in South Africa, they weren’t the only ones learning… Winfrey herself found that for some of the girls “their past traumas would show up despite our best efforts to create a safe and engaging environment”.

When she started the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls (Owlag), it was because she wanted to provide a space for young leaders to grow and flourish and become the best versions of themselves.

“To shape leaders of the world who are whole, not just leaders who are building from broken pieces,” she added.

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First-hand experience

Over the years, she told the conference in Sandton on Friday: “l’ve witnessed first-hand the devastating effects of trauma and the profound shift that can happen when you change the question from ‘What’s wrong with you?’ to ‘What happened to you?’

”Dealing with embedded trauma takes a special approach and Winfrey believes the ‘neurosequential’ model is one of the best ways to develop trauma responses in the educational environment,” said Winfrey.

The model, introduced at Owlag in 2019, has transformed the quality of education at the institution and has helped shape holistic leaders.

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Impact of trauma

Child psychiatrist Dr Bruce Perry explained it as a developmentally based approach to treating trauma, based on neurobiological wounding.

“It is informed by the neurolobiology and the understanding of how remarkable the human brain is, and it’s mediation of all our thoughts, feelings and behaviour,” he said in a virtual presentation.

“All aspects of humanity involve the brain and its functions, how we form and maintain relationships – relearning takes places through this organ.”

Winfrey’s latest visit to SA is to pass on the message of the neurosequential model to hundreds of teachers, caregivers, psychologists and other professionals.

A one-day conference at the Gallagher Convention Centre, What Happened to You: Understanding the Impact of Trauma on Learning, Teaching, and Psycho- logical Functioning was hailed as a game changer in education.

After meetings with Perry, Winfrey and the school “began to implement a more holistic approach to education”, she said.

– reitumetsem@citizen.co.za

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