Mourning and Recovery from Trauma: In Rwanda, Tears Flow Within

Abstract

This article is a personal testimony of the great suffering experienced by thousands of Rwandan parents on learning of the killing of their children in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In the face of the unprecedented social cataclysm that led my eldest son to his death, my intent is to demonstrate the necessity of resituating ideas about grief and trauma in a framework that is coherent with Rwandan culture. This is essential if one wishes to help Rwandans find words for their fears, hopes and questions about the loss of loved ones in the context of extreme violence. By discussing the intervention offered by my mother, I address the approach used in Rwandan tradition as a response to and therapeutic tool for extreme grief and trauma. The tears of a man flow within.The sorrow of a cooking pot is understood by he who has scraped its bottom. (Rwandan proverbs) The two Rwandan proverbs given above symbolize the intense suffering I experienced upon learning of the death of my eldest son at the hands of a

Somatic panic-attack equivalents in a community sample of Rwandan widows who survived the 1994 genocide

“…Furthermore, following the genocide, the location of most bodies was unknown, and traditional burials were often not performed. In the Rwandan culture, shortness of breath may be interpreted as caused by an ancestor who never received proper burial, the deceased later returning as a spirit to strangle a living relative as punishment for not having conducted the necessary rites (Bagilishya, 2000;Uwanyiligira, 1997). As another example, to Rwandans a headache may be regarded as a harbinger of insanity (per Dr Hagengimana's clinical experience).…”

Symptom Presentation and Symptom Meaning Among Traumatized Cambodian Refugees: Relevance to a Somatically Focused Cognitive-Behavior Therapy

“…Patients often experience increased survival guilt when unable to send sufficient money to parents, siblings, and other relatives in Cambodia; owing to the great poverty of that country, death from crime, illness, and poor nutrition is common. Also, survival guilt for Cambodians frequently presents in a culturally specific form: worry about the spiritual status of relatives who did not receive death ceremonials (Boehnlein, 1987;Cook, 2006; likewise, among Rwandan genocide survivors; see Bagilishya, 2000;Uwanyiligira, 1997). In the Khmer cultural context, death rites, such as chanting and cremation, are thought to ensure the future prosperity of the deceased.…”

Working with Myths: Creative Expression Workshops for Immigrant and Refugee Children in a School Setting

“…They also used their skills to analyze and interpret the children's drawings. The psychologist, who was a storyteller as well, knew the role traditional stories played in therapy for children of war (Bagilishya, 1999(Bagilishya, , 2000. The transcultural child psychiatrist emphasized the use of identity and otherness issues in the multiethnic classroom to give children a chance to both make their experiences their own and distance themselves from them.…”