Wars Necessitate the Adoption of Broad-Based Models of Healing in Which the Search for Truth Plays an Integral Role
In the recent past, we have seen numerous examples of "truth commis-sions," such as those organized in South Africa or Guatemala, in which immunity from prosecution is traded for public admission of guilt. Whatever the strengths or weaknesses of such an approach, it does offer victims and families a chance to confront the perpetrator, and listen to him describe his crime and ask for forgiveness. Moreover, in Latin America in particular, there is also a tradition of victims coming forward to speak publicly about the violence committed against them, in the process breaking the silence and gaining the solidarity and support of other witnesses. Taken together, these approaches provide useful markers in helping us to find more communal ways of helping victim. <> of violence, for example, by instituting "abuse tribunals" in which victims learn how to overcome self-blame and face those who victimized them in the first place (see McDonald; Viseur-Sellers; and Odio [interviews]).
War Alters Notions of Trauma
As one might imagine, not only does war trauma highlight the inadequa-cies of current psychotherapeutic theory and practice, but it also shows how our emphasis on the individual ignores the degree of traumatization within communities more generally. Moreover, given the magnitude of the suffering, it is difficult for some of us not to think politically, and see healing and recovering as possibilities only if existing social structures are radically transformed: there is no recovery from injustice that has not ceased; there is no healing when traumatization reoccurs on a daily basis. While such a perspective leads us, on the one hand, to make explicit the links between "wartime"
and "peacetime" victimization of women, on the other it forces us to re-evaluate the interrelationship between the justice system in general, and psychotherapy in particular.
We must ask ourselves whether the justice available to war victims in the International Tribunals is therapeutic. If we answer affirmatively, does it not behoove us, as therapists, to expand our understanding of therapy when working with "peacetime'' victims of violence? Indeed, one might even go so far as to argue that the judicial system, in championing reconciliation and the rehabilitation of victims, is introducing psychological and therapeutic elements into its mandate. In similar fashion, therapists would gain by learning and drawing inspiration from recent trends in jurisprudence, since both justice and healing are crucial if the victimization of women is to be effectively challenged.
4
Assault on the Soul: Women in the Former Yugoslavia
Such a perspective, adopted by many of the contributors to this volume, demands that psychologists work with a far wider range of actors than has traditionally been the case (see Anderson). In this way, attention is shifted from individual women to the wider structures in which they are embedded, whether these serve to oppress and dominate, or to foster justice and peace to the world. Needless to say, at an individual level, this understanding calls for healing methods that are contextual and global, and focused on causes as much as effects (see Scheffler and Miichele).
Wars Highlight the Secondary Traumatization of Healers
and Our Unwillingness to See Ourselves as Part of the Collective Damage As I have suggested above, therapists working in war zones must reorient themselves from the intra-psychic to the social. Within that context, not only does our vicarious traumatization as healers become evident, but we are confronted with the impossibility of remaining neutral or detached from the sociopolitical forces that led to our clients' victimization in the first place (see Scheffler and Miichele). Obviously, there are certain dangers inherent within this state of affairs, including the likelihood that one will become caught up in the collective psyche of those with whom one is working (see Kramer; Scheffler and Miichele; and Foeken), and the risk that a colonial relationship will develop between survivors and healers on the one hand, and foreign and local professionals on the other (see Ostodic). As such, one of the recurring themes of this book is the danger of relying too heavily upon intra-psychic medical models in a war context. Needless to say, such approaches are naive at best, and unethical at worst. Indeed, I would go so far as to ask practitioners working in the "undeclared" war zones of Europe, North America and elsewhere also to reflect upon the ethics of de-contextualized interventions that do not take into account the institutionalized and systematic nature of violence against women.
Wars also serve to raise a number of other questions for feminist psychotherapists, including most notably those related to the existence of evil in our midst. How does it become so prevalent within a given social context? What happens to individuals who are witnesses or subject to evil acts? As one might imagine, these issues can only be addressed if we seek out the sources of the evil and learn how to face them in all their enormity and power. For the legal system in particular, this involves offering justice to the victims and punishment to the perpetrators, in the process rendering future conflicts and acts of vengeance less likely. Therapists would do well to learn from such an approach, and adopt a perspective that is sensitive not only to the suffering of individuals as a result of abuse, but also to the collective trauma that comes from living in a world filled with violence and despair. In short, Western psychotherapists tend to devote too much effort to the task of fostering Introduction
5
intra-psychic recovery, and too little to that of restoring individuals at a community level, for example through victim testimonies, rape museums, public declarations of contrition by perpetrators or funds and monuments for survivors. While this is not to suggest that psychotherapy is superfluous or unnecessary, it must be accompanied by broader-based interventions as well.
There can be little doubt that the war has changed the perspectives of all those who have contributed to this volume, making us realize that, if we are to move forward in the treatment of rape victims, we must de-stigmatize the survivors while stigmatizing the perpetrators, both by accusing them publicly of their crimes, and by sending them to prison. Moreover, we have also learned that traumatization of those working with war victims is inevitable, not only from the perspective of countertransference, but also in terms of the war's impact upon the very essence of our being, causing us to question our existence, our choices, and what altruism and morality mean for ourselves and our communities. Thus, for the three interviewees in particular (McDonald; Odio; and Viseur-Sellers), they all make reference to a similar range of issues with which they have had to contend while working at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY): evil, racism, sexism, and the trauma that comes from being exposed to war crimes testimony on a daily basis. In another instance, I asked one of the contributors why she had not gone for therapy in the two years since she had left the Balkans, despite suffering severe traumatization. In reply, she said, "I have been too incapacitated to do so." I then asked her how she would have reacted had one of her clients told her that. She laughed, and I joined her. In all too many cases, healers forget to take care of themselves while in the midst of looking after others.
In this collection, we gather together the voices and perspectives of a number of women whose work has brought them face to face with the hatred and violence of the Yugoslav conflict. They include a gender specialist and two .iudges involved in the ICTY in the Hague; a Serbian feminist and founder of the Women's Autonomous Center in Belgrade; the North American coordinator of Psychologists for Social Responsibility; a Bosnian psychologist engaged in research into the complexities of women's networking at an international scale; two Norwegians involved in the implementation and assessment of programs designed to help traumatized female survivors in Bosnia-Herzegovina; a team of German psychotherapists engaged in training activities for Bosnian para-professionals; a Dutch psychotherapist also involved in the training and supervision of local health workers; the German founder of one of the first treatment centers for women to be opened in Bosnia-Herzegovina; a Dutch social scientist offering advice and a new vision on treatment interventions; and finally the special editor herself, who 6
Assault on the Soul: Women in the Former Yugoslavia
conducted the interviews, gathered the voices and bore witness to the women's testimony.
All of these individuals are intrinsically connected to one another. As a scholar researching the activities and mandate of the International Tribunal, I developed a relationship with the three women interviewed for this volume. I met Anne Anderson in the Hague when she took part in one of the consultation sessions organized for the Tribunal by Psychologists for Social Responsibility. As for Edita Ostodic and Gabriele Kramer, I got to know them through my friendship and close collaboration with one of the founders of Medica Mundiale. This latter individual also introduced me to Sabine Scheffler and Agnes Miichele who had previously provided training to Medica personnel. She also served as a point of contact for Berit Schei and Solveig Dahl, whose team was also based in Zenica and often collaborated with Medica. Turning to Ingrid Foeken, I had been friends with her in Holland many years ago, and we reestablished our friendship when I returned to the country. As an individual closely associated with the activities of Admira in the Former Yugoslavia, she is an especially well-qualified contributor to this publication; she is also the one who recommended her friend Anja Meulenbelt. Finally, the circle closes with Lepa Mladjenovic, who agreed to participate in this project after approaching Ingrid for help and support, who subsequently put her into contact with me. While I do not pretend to suggest that the views of these authors are necessarily representative of all those who have ever worked with war survivors in the Former Yugoslavia, they are nonetheless women who care deeply about other women, and who found themselves in a foreign land or with foreign visitors at a time of profound horror and devastation.
REFERENCE
Chesler, P. (Winter 1996). On the issues: The progressive woman s quarterly, p. 56.
Feminist Psychology and Global Issues:
An Action Agenda
Anne Anderson
SUMMARY. Highlighted in this article is a call for feminists to expand their level of intervention to include global awareness. Several projects are described as examples of feminists working as positive facilitators of change for victims and survivors of war. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: getinfo@haworthpre5sinc.com]
KEYWORDS. Peace psychology, feminist psychology, global awareness, Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR)
Anne Anderson, MSW, is Coordinator of Psychologists for Social Responsibility and in practice with the Washington Therapy Guild in Washington, DC.
The author thanks Susan McKay, Martha Mednick, Bianca Cody Murphy, and Mike Wessells for their valuable comments and suggestions.
Consultants included: Anne Anderson, MSW, Coordinator, Psychologists for Social Responsibility; Leila Dane, PhD, Director, Institute for Victims of Trauma, McLean, VA, who was particularly instrumental in developing the first draft; C. J.
Frederick, PhD, UCLNVA Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA; Mary Harvey, PhD, Director, Victims of Violence Program, Cambridge Hospital, MA; Kathleen Nader, DSW, Director of Evaluation, UCLA Trauma, Violence and Sudden Bereavement Program, CA; Shana Swiss, MD, Director, Women's Program, Physicians for Human Rights, Boston, MA; Janet Yassen, MSW, Boston, MA.
Address correspondence to: Anne Anderson, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, 2607 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Washington, DC 20008, U.S.A. Electronic mail may be sent to: psysrusa@interserv.com; Website: http//www.rmc.edu/psysr.
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: "Feminist Psychology and Global Issues: An Action Agenda."
Anderson, Anne. en-published simultaneously in Women& Therapy(fhe Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 22, No.
1, 1999, pp. 7-21; and: Assault on the Soul: Women in the Former Yugoslavia (ed: Sara Sharratt and Ellyn Kaschak) The Haworth Press, Inc., 1999, pp. 7-21. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800·342-9678, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: getinto@haworthpressinc.com].
© 1999 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
7
8
Assault on the Soul: Women in the Former Yugoslavia
Feminists have long been active in the peace movement. Early Western feminists often made a connection between militarism and sexism and were active opponents of war (Brock-Utne, 1985). Today many feminist peace psychologists and other mental health professionals (Van Soest, 1997) are working on global issues to respond to violence and to build peaceful communities. Traditional peace psychology, informed by feminist perspectives (Murphy, 1995), addresses not only issues of war, international and inter-ethnic conflict, but also has expanded to include "the elimination of coercive systems of interaction as a basis of interaction between individuals and groups" (McKay, 1996, p. 94). The multiplicity of manifestations of structural violence, violent conflict and oppression that at11ict our world calis for multi-level, multifaceted interventions.
Feminist psychotherapists, by definition, are familiar with this type of analysis and are working with their clients "towards strategies and solutions advancing feminist resistance, transformation and social change in daily per-sonallives and relationships with the social, emotional and political environment" (Brown, 1994, p. 22). But the press of individual situations and cases can often cause us to lose sight of the larger picture. We overlook our capacities to participate at several levels of intervention well beyond the confines of our office walls. With this report I hope to stimulate the creativity, passion and hope of feminist therapists to expand our horizons and find ways to support, extend and multiply the work of our colleagues around the world.
We find feminist psychologists in a variety of settings-from working with individuals in the treatment room, to performing community-based interventions, teaching psychology, pursuing action research, providing policy analysis, and initiating political action. This article discusses several projects as concrete examples of the multi-leveled interventions being undertaken to support women and foster peaceful, sustainable societies around the world.
These projects were chosen because they adhere to the following feminist principles:
1. They contextualize individuals in their societies;
2. They are aware of and alert for gender differences in experience; 3. They analyze power relationships relevant to situations;
4. They use a range of empowerment models of therapy;
5. They use collaborative processes to accomplish goals;
6. They listen and learn from others, across cultural and language barriers; 7. They are based on an ethical, non-neutral stance regarding social justice, equality and misuse of power.
Many of the programs described in this article were developed by members of Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) or have been supported by PsySR members. PsySR is a United States-based international Anne Anderson
9
network of psychologists and other mental health professionals who draw upon the research, knowledge, and practice of psychology to promote durable peace at the community, national, and international levels. Members work to: (a) apply the growing body of knowledge about conflict resolution and violence prevention, (b) facilitate positive change for victims and survivors of personal, community and civil violence, (c) advocate for basic human needs-including actions which decrease poverty, ensure ethnic and gender equity, increase work opportunity, promote healthy and sustainable environments, and achieve wiser balance between human needs and military budgets, (d) ensure that relevant information from psychology is used in local, national and international public policy. The first project we look at facilitates positive change for victims and survivors of war.
WAR TRAUMA AND RECOVERY BROCHURE
In 1992, when the stories of mass sexual assault and rape began to break from the territories of the former Yugoslavia, PsySR realized that women would be needing psychological services but that many would not have access to them. Few services were available and there was little social support for seeking mental health therapeutic help. With Irena Sarovic, M.A., originally from Croatia, as our principal author and translator, we consulted with a number of mental health professionals with particular expertise in dealing with the aftermath of sexual violence and trauma and developed a self-help psychoeducational brochure for use throughout the region. Several principles guided our process: the information was to be drawn from the best that feminist psychology had to offer at the time; the product needed to be short and inexpensive-easy to reproduce, transport and distribute in a war zone; the brochure needed to be "user-friendly," offering its help in a culturally acceptable way. For instance, since rape carried such social stigma, the subject needed to be approached in the larger context of the trauma of war.
The resulting brochure recognizes the social context of trauma experienced by individuals and their communities. It gives information on normal human reactions to experiencing trauma, includes paragraphs on rape and torture, and provides some concrete suggestions for self-care and support. Recognizing that many people would be experiencing chronic stress because of the continuation of the war, self-care suggestions focused on maintaining as much control over one's life as possible, deciding carefully, for instance, about who to talk to about what and when to do it. There are versions printed in both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, so that all sides of the conflict are able to use it.
Well over 15,000 have already been directly distributed by grassroots women's groups working in all parts of the former Yugoslavia, by U.S.
1
Assault on the Soul: Women in the Former Yugoslavia
mental health professionals providing workshops and other support there, and in asylum countries for use with refugees. Since people are encouraged to copy the brochure, and the brochure has been reprinted in some handbooks, it is impossible to say how widely this resource has been distributed.
Anecdotal information as to its usefulness has been forthcoming from a number of sources. For instance, mental health professionals have found it most useful as a conversation starter for groups of refugees and some have used it as training materials for paraprofessional volunteers. Women's knitting circles, developed by displaced women as a way of making warm clothes and providing a support system for themselves, have used the brochures as a way of helping members of the circle to deal with their experiences. Women for Women, a U.S.-based non-profit organization that hand delivers funds and sponsors microenterprises for women in Bosnia, distributed the brochure and reported that children as young as ten were able to read it out loud without difficulty. The brochure is now also available in a more generic form in English and continues to be distributed more widely.
TRAUMA, TESTIMONY AND SOCIAL MEMORY
Inger Agger, a psychologist from Denmark, has been instrumental in creatively addressing issues of appropriate treatment for women and girls who have experienced gender-specific human rights violations. She was responsible for the Psycho-Social Projects of the European Community Task Force during the war in the Former Yugoslavia and subsequently was Psycho-Social Advisor at the OSCE Democratization Branch in Sarajevo. She has been a strong advocate for taking "an ethical non-neutral stand" (1995, p. 35) when working in therapy with women who have survived sexual assault, torture and other human rights abuses. " 'Mixing therapy with politics' is in fact unavoidable in psycho-social assistance to victims of political conflicts. If aid workers do not take an ethical stand against injustice they are still acting politically, because they are joining the conspiracy of secrecy and silence which maintains the traumatizing and oppressive power of shame" (1997, p. 123).
In her research project interviewing women from 10 different countries in the Middle East and Latin America (Agger, 1994), Agger used her office as what she calls "a ritual space" in which women could tell their stories "so that people in asylum countries would know more about the human rights violations which take place against women" (1995, p. 37), to contribute to social memory. She used a tape recorder to record their testimony so that the woman knew "that her voice and her name could be heard" (p. 37).
Agger describes this extension of the traditional therapeutic hour this way:
... I attempted to unite my experience from the use of testimony in the consciousness-raising groups of the women's movement with experi-Anne Anderson
11
ences from my therapeutic training and my work with testimony as a trans-cultural therapeutic method. This method implies that the research process and therapeutic process are not separable. For victims of human rights violations, testimony has a special significance, because it becomes a documented accusation and a piece of evidence against the perpetrators. 'Testimony' as a concept has a special, double connota-tion: it contains objective, judicial, public and political aspects, and subjective, spiritual, cathartic and private aspects. (1995, p. 37) Agger is very concerned about "the major contradiction between the psychological processes involved in reconciliation and those involved in social memory. Reconciliation involved recreating trust between people who arc divided by hatred and fear of each other; social remembrance and testimony require keeping all that happened-both the good and the evil-in the collective memory of these same people" (p. 38). The term reconciliation has many meanings. At one end of the spectrum we see that when a con±lict has terminated there is social pressure on people to come to some accommoda-tion with the former foe, to "live and let live," or "forgive and forget," so that some order and stability may return to the community. Galtung probably expresses the most ambitious end of the spectrum best when he describes reconciliation as using "creative, positive conflict transformation ... not only to avoid violence ... but to increase the entropy [of peace] by emerging from that phase of conflict with more mature selves and more mature social forma-tions ... " (1996, p. 272).
At the same time there is a need for recognition of and restitution for the suffering experienced by both sides, and for social memory to act as a preventive to "never again" let such atrocities happen. Of particular concern for feminist therapists is the fact that women's experiences are often lost in the social memory, that the underlying structural issues which fostered the conflict are not addressed in the aftermath, and traumatized individuals are caught in the middle. If they go along with the reconciliation then they contribute to the sense of community, feeling connected again, but are in danger of denying their own reality. On the other hand, if they maintain their insistence on publicly remembering their experiences they are in danger of remaining outside the community and stigmatized when their society wants to forgive and forget. Issues involved in both effective reconciliation leading to durable peace (Lund, 1996) and accurate and inclusive social memory need to be addressed in the "search for new methods and aims in trauma therapy" (Agger, 1995, p. 39). This is an area that requires much attention and creative innovation, with feminist therapists uniquely positioned to bring their considerable insights and experience to bear on this problem.
1
Assault on the Soul: Women in the Former Yugoslavia
CONSULTATION WITH THE INTERNATIONAL
CRIMINAL TRIBUNALS
In 1994, in my role as PsySR Coordinator, I was contacted by an international women's rights Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), The Coordination of Women's Advocacy (CWA), for help with their process of consultation with the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (ICTY/R), which is based in The Netherlands, at The Hague.
CWA began its work as a group of women from 10 asylum countries in 1993
and has since organized a number of consultations with institutions of the United Nations system. These have focused primarily on the question of gender-specific war crimes against women during the war in the former Yugoslavia, and more recently, also in Rwanda. CWA has consistently called for prosecution of rape as a war crime, has advised the Tribunal on ways to reduce retraumatization of women survivors who agree to provide evidence, how to best support witnesses in the process of testifying, and has called attention to the problems of witness protection.
For instance, when the Tribunal was deciding on whether or not to require public disclosure of witnesses' identity in open court, the prosecution staff asked for expert opinion on the issue. The Tribunal neede