Kate Woodsome covered the January 6 Capitol attack as part of The Washington Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Her reporting examined not just what happened that day, but the political, social, and neurobiological conditions that made it possible — how collective stress, information ecosystems, and democratic erosion converged into violence.

The work came at a cost. Covering political trauma inflicts its own toll, and Kate developed Complex PTSD from her frontline experience and its aftermath. What followed was a reckoning with the state of American democracy, with the extractive nature of traditional journalism, and with what it actually takes to sustain people doing this work.

Her coverage explores both dimensions — the systemic forces destabilizing democracy and the personal aftermath of bearing witness. It's reporting informed by trauma science and a commitment to understanding not just what's broken, but what repair might require.

A Public Defender's Radical Approach to Representing Jan. 6 Rioters | The New Yorker

This is what it looks like when the mob turns on you | The Washington Post

The Jan. 6 mob surged at me. Then the trauma rushed in. | The Washington Post

Inside January 6 — from the rally to the riot | The Washington Post

Can Americans see the political tribes they're in? | The Washington Post

Kate Woodsome gets the help of neuroscientist Jay Van Bavel and political scientist Shanto Iyengar to understand what drives political sectarianism — and what we can do about it. | The Washington Post

Inside the Million MAGA March | The Washington Post

FAQs

- Democratic decline + trust crisis: Only about 33% of Americans trust the federal government, according to a 2025 report by the Partnership for Public Service.
- Social fragmentation: Just 34% of U.S. adults say most people can be trusted, down from 46% in the early 1970s.
- Media distrust: Trust in information from national news organizations has dropped; only 56% report at least “some trust” in national media.
- Political violence: A recent survey found that 57% of Americans say political violence is a major problem, and 78% believe politically motivated violence has increased in recent years.
- Burnout + disconnection: Many civic leaders, journalists, and changemakers are overwhelmed; trauma and stress feed back into systems that hurt civic health.
The nervous system is the body’s communication and regulation network. It’s a living system that constantly scans the environment, interprets information, and adjusts the body so we can think, feel, act, and connect.
It includes the brain, spinal cord, and the network of nerves throughout the body. It’s main job is to help keep us alive.
The nervous system:
- signals safety or danger
- regulates heart rate, breath, digestion, immunity, mood
- drives decision-making and social connection
- activates instinctive survival responses when needed
Stress is the body and brain’s natural response to a perceived challenge, demand, or threat. It is a biological activation designed to help us take action, stay alert, or protect ourselves.
- Healthy stress is short-term and manageable — it rises and falls.
- Harmful stress is too intense, too frequent, or too prolonged, pushing the body outside its ability to recover.
Stress becomes traumatic when it overwhelms the nervous system, exceeding someone’s ability to process what’s happening.
Trauma is a biopsychosocial and spiritual wound — meaning it affects the body, mind, relationships, and sense of self and purpose. It occurs when a person experiences distressing events or conditions that are too much, too fast, too soon, or too long for their system to process.
This can affect physical and mental health, behavior, relationships, and decision-making long after the event has passed.
- Narratives shape how communities make sense of conflict, belonging, and threat.
- Trauma skews perception: We may see danger where there is none, or miss opportunities because of hypervigilance.
- Media often amplifies fear, discord, and mistrust — contributing to democratic breakdown.
- Our lab supports regenerative storytelling: frameworks and practices that help journalists, civic leaders, and communities tell stories that rebuild trust, create connection, and support system repair.
- We are not a therapy provider.
- Our focus is on practices, community, and systems — not diagnosing or treating clinical mental health issues.
- We emphasize building stress regulation capacity, civic understanding, and structural change, not clinical therapy.
- Our work is explicitly nonpartisan.
- We are not aligned with any political party; our goal is human well-being, democratic health, and systems integrity, not ideology.
- Neuroscience & psychology: trauma science, stress response, regulation tools.
- Political science: data on polarization, institutional trust, civic behavior.
- Media studies: research on narrative effects, media trust, and information ecosystems.
- Systems theory: feedback loops, leverage points, systemic change.
- Collective trauma research: how large-scale social events affect communities’ long-term health.
- Leadership with deep experience in journalism, systems thinking, and trauma work
- A praxis-driven model — we build theory + tools + real-world experimentation
- Dual orientation: personal regulation + structural change
- A commitment to regenerative, ethical, long-term change (not quick fixes)
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