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Oral history and supervision

On May 17, 2023, just after the Association’s General Meeting, a workshop on Oral History and Supervision was held. In its first part, Małgorzata Wosińska, starting from the concept of trauma, explained how to conduct interviews in order not to re-traumatise the interviewee. She recalled concepts such as PTSD (today used as PTS), trauma triggers, dissociation or resilience. She argued not to avoid difficult topics, but to learn to work with them. In the second part of the meeting, Marek Grondas taught us how to simultaneously “turn away from ourselves” and “take care of ourselves” – in order to perceive, with maximum objectivity and professional neutrality, individual emotional needs that can become the cause of unpredictable problems in the relationship with the interviewee. To this end, the method of supervision is helpful – either conducted by a professional (therapist) or by undertaking in-depth reflection and seeking advice by sharing experiences in a trusted circle of colleagues. As an association of oral history practitioners, we will be looking at our options for introducing such a support mechanism for our activities. We also certainly recommend such interventions in research and documentation projects.