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Collective Trauma Integration Process: Coaching in Groups

The Collective Trauma Integration Process, developed by Thomas Hübl, is a group process for hurt that is shared by a community, or passed down through a family or culture, rather than carried by one person alone. It is taught as a named process by Thomas Hübl and the Pocket Project. A Crossref search on 2026-10-14 turned up no outcome study of the process, so its evidence grade is practitioner-led. The nearest research, on historical and intergenerational trauma, is debated as well as supportive.

What it is

This approach works with hurt that is held across a group, a community or a shared history. That can include wounds passed down through families or cultures, and injuries that many people in one place have lived through. The aim its teachers describe is to notice these lingering effects, hold them in a group, and work through them gradually over time.

The process is taught by its originators as their own. Its specific steps belong to their training and are not reproduced here. What follows describes the general shape of the work as the Pocket Project describes it publicly, and it does not stand in for that teaching.

Where it comes from

The Pocket Project's website names Thomas Hübl as its founder (The Pocket Project, n.d.). The project describes its Integration Labs as year-round, continuous groups, online or on site. Each lab gathers around one thematic or geographic dimension of collective trauma and is led by trained Collective Trauma Facilitators (The Pocket Project, n.d.).

The idea that trauma can be shared across a group has a longer history in research. Saul's book Collective Trauma, Collective Healing (2013) is one example, and it sits beside the more recent debate over the historical trauma idea described below.

The principles underneath

Shared hurt

Some pain is carried by a group or a history, not only by one person, and this approach works with it at that level.

Pace before depth

Steadiness and trust in the group come before deeper material, and the facilitator moves the work on as the group can hold more.

A settled body first

The originators describe a regulated nervous system and relational safety as conditions for this work, not as results of it.

How a session runs

  1. Join a continuous group, online or on site, that runs through the year and centres on one thematic or geographic dimension of collective trauma.
  2. Build enough steadiness and trust in the group before working with the most difficult material.
  3. Notice what a shared wound feels like in your body and in the room, without rushing to resolve it.
  4. Let the facilitator set the pace, moving into deeper layers only as the group can hold them.
  5. Over time, according to the project's description, members take a trauma-informed attitude into their everyday life.

When it tends to fit

  • You notice a grief or anger that does not seem to belong only to your own life, and you want a way to work with it alongside others.
  • Your community is still living with a shared injury, and talking about it keeps stalling in the same place.
  • You are looking for group work that unfolds over a year, rather than a single conversation.

What the research shows

Evidence: Practitioner tradition — little or no outcome research

A Crossref search on 2026-10-14 turned up no outcome study of the Pocket Project's collective trauma integration process. The project's Integration Labs page, read on the same date, describes the groups' aims and structure. The nearest research is on historical and intergenerational trauma. Kirmayer, Gone and Moses (2014) examine the historical trauma idea and argue that it runs together very different experiences, so it needs careful use. Yehuda and Lehrner (2018) review evidence that trauma effects can pass between generations, including possible epigenetic routes, and their abstract notes that human studies are scarce, so intergenerational effects in people cannot yet be attributed to a single set of causes. Herman (1992) reviews the evidence for complex post-traumatic disorder in people who survived prolonged, repeated trauma. These papers study trauma and its transmission. None of them tests a group coaching process.

Where the evidence is thin: The research above is about trauma in general and about historical and intergenerational trauma. It is not about this process, and the historical trauma idea is debated. Claims made in the originators' own teaching cannot be checked against outcome data at present.

Sources

  1. Kirmayer, L. J., Gone, J. P., & Moses, J. (2014). Rethinking Historical Trauma. Transcultural Psychiatry.
  2. Yehuda, R., & Lehrner, A. (2018). Intergenerational transmission of trauma effects: putative role of epigenetic mechanisms. World Psychiatry.
  3. Herman, J. L. (1992). Complex PTSD: A syndrome in survivors of prolonged and repeated trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress.
  4. Saul, J. (2013). Collective Trauma, Collective Healing. Routledge.
  5. The Pocket Project. (n.d.). Home [Web page].
  6. The Pocket Project. (n.d.). Integration Labs [Web page, in German].

Where it stops

Collective wounds are heavy. The originators describe this work as needing a settled nervous system and relational safety. If you are in acute distress, carrying trauma that is recent, ongoing or repeated, or living with symptoms that do not ease, a qualified trauma clinician is the right first step.

Group work on shared history can surface material that no single facilitator can fully hold, and no group can guarantee safety. Taking part in this approach is not the same as being qualified to facilitate it.

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This page documents a coaching approach for educational purposes. IX Coach is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the approach's originators or any organization that trains or certifies in it; their names appear only to identify the approach and credit its source.