A notion of trauma has its roots in psychiatry and medicine where it was theorized at the level of individual. Particularly, in the course of the last decade the concept has established itself extensively as an instrument for analysis of broader social phenomena. Trauma at the collective level is described in variety ways - as a cultural, social, collective or national, if most common descriptions mentioned. The prevalent line of thinking regarding the trauma at the collective level involves constructivist approach taking trauma as socially produced construct.
Political forces dominating the mainstream of the Czech political scene accuse independently living individuals of selfish privatization and extrapolated consumerism. However, the shared household model of living (not in a couple or within own family) extensively spreads among independently living individuals alongside this ''privatization''. The milieu of this specific households, which represent so called ''chosen families'' consisting of flat mates and friends in the flat or house rented in group, is along with single occupied households the source of what is described as ''urban tribes''. Precisely these independently living individuals and their specific structures in contrary prevent and confront the societal erosion and disintegration. Their life-styles and everyday practices extensively lead to activities contributing to community revival at the local level as well as to maintaining of an open character of the society more generally.
In a qualitative study of single people conducted in 2003 one particular finding stood out: a significant number of the interviewees (economically independent and without a partner) revealed their involvement in various other forms of regular or even long-term relationships. In an analysis of in-depth interviews conducted in 2003-2005 the following categories of alternative relationships were identified as typical for the social context of contemporary Czech society: 'relationships with married lovers', 'weekend marriages', 'long-distance relationships', 'one-night stands', 'open relationships', 'lover in case of need', and 'relationships to prove oneself'. The existence of relationships that are not longterm or reproduction-oriented is not a result of any deliberate strategy but is rather a consequence of the complex changes in mentality and behaviour that occurred in the 1990s. These shifts, for example, relating to professional commitment and career satisfaction, tend to be understood as the explicit result of labour-market pressures on individual actors, but research has shown that, even at the level of individual actors, alternative approaches to partner relationships and reproduction are much more the result of people adopting and internalising post-1989 cultural templates.