The Effects Of Trauma
Trauma is triggered when a person or group has looked into the face of death. The situation is beyond our control and does not allow us the time or resources to deal with it. It is like being in the eye of the storm.
If there is no time or space after the event to deal with the trauma then it can turn into post-traumatic stress. This creates terror, fear and can come on suddenly in the form of hallucinations and flashbacks. A person's cognition and behaviour can completely change.
If the pain is not transformed it is transferred, in one of two ways. The first is inward and can manifest itself through avoidance [mentally or chemically in substance abuse] of anything that can trigger memories. Or it can be turned outward through aggression, driving fast or working too hard. The individual disassociates themselves from the will to live.
Reaffiliation to the human condition means situating the conflict in context. We must first construct and reinterpret the story and discover the motives of the perpetrators. From here we can work towards forgiveness, the most difficult part.
Alfredo Camelo, a Colombian psychologist working in Zurich.
Taken from the brochure for the 'Initiatives for Change' Conference, Agenda for Reconciliation, held in Switzerland in 2004.