Subjectivity and Politics: The Psychotherapy of Extreme Traumatization in Chile

Becker, David; Castillo, María Isabel Rivas; Gómez, Elena Sánchez; Kovalskys, Juana; Lira, Elizabeth

doi:10.1080/00207411.1989.11449125

Cited by 17 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Yet a purely political understanding of their problems would have meant ignoring the severe individual symptoms we confronted. This led us to develop an approach that integrates both the subjective and sociopolitical dimensions in psychotherapy as well as in macrosocial analysis (Becker & Lira, 1989; Becker et al, 1989; Cienfuegos & Monelli, 1983; Lira & Weinstein, 1984; Lira, Weinstein, & Kovalskys, 1987).…”

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confidence: 99%

Therapy with Victims of Political Repression in Chile: The Challenge of Social Reparation

Becker

Lira²,

Castillo

et al. 1990

Journal of Social Issues

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This article describes the work of a mental health team confronting the individual and social consequences of human rights violations by the military government in Chile from 1973 through 1989. It examines three forms of repression—torture, disappearance, and death—and the consequences these have had for victims and family members. Damage to victims is conceptualized in terms of “extreme traumatization,” and psychotherapeutic work with the victims has required radical rethinking of the nature of the therapeutic bond that is necessary with these patients. Grief processes have special relevance in this work, as does the relationship between the personal experience of repression and the sociopolitical context. An illustrative case study of therapy with a torture victim is presented. Finally, the article emphasizes the importance of societal reparation for the psychological recovery of the victims and the consolidation of a stable democracy in Chile.

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confidence: 99%

Therapy with Victims of Political Repression in Chile: The Challenge of Social Reparation

Becker

Lira²,

Castillo

et al. 1990

Journal of Social Issues

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“…Extreme traumatization as a specific concept denotes the specific political meaning of this type of trauma, which (Becker, Castillo, G6mez, Kovalskys, & Lira, 1989;Lira, Becker, & Castillo, 1990) is closely related to Bettelheim's theory (Bettelheim, 1981 ). This concept emphasizes the radical disruption in the goals and ideals that the individual had established during his or her life, along with its continuing destructive impact on his or her identity, and on his or her family and social relations.…”

Section: Conceptualizing a Psychotherapeutic Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Basing my arguments on aur clinica! experience and our research (Becker, 1992;Becker & Lira, 1989;Lira & Castillo, 1991;Lira & Weinstein, 1984;Weinstein, Lira, & Rojas, 1987), 1 will try to show that PTSD, even in its own framework, is not an adequate diagnostic instrument and furthermore that it has ideologica! implications which are important to avoid when dealing with victims of human rights violations and other forms of organized violence.…”

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confidence: 99%

Beyond Trauma

1995

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“…Testimony is both a technique deployed in listening to Holocaust survivors and a record of narrative evidence of the experience of survival (6,7), decades after their traumata. Testimony is a focus of inquiry for humanities scholarship, where it is considered to be a unique form of narrative, ethnography, oral history, and art (8). All disciplines and groups have emphasized that testimony functions in both the private and the public realms, as a means for individual recovery and as a means of bearing witness to historical and social realities related to political violence.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Treatment is said to work by deactivating these "networks of fear" in the psyche (12). Testimony, on the other hand, is based on theories that consider collective traumatization to be at least as significant as individual traumatization (8,13). Testimony is said to work through narration of individuals' personal experiencing of collective traumatization in a new social context in which their remembrances can be used to develop new collective understandings of history and communal identity that can better support peace and social trust.…”

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confidence: 99%

Testimony Psychotherapy for Genocide Survivors: Providing a Common Ground Between Treatment and Prevention of Human Rights Abuse

Kulenoviĉ¹

2017

Journal of International Scientific Researches

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Testimony psychotherapy is a brief individual psychotherapeutic method for working with survivors of state-sponsored violence. First described by a group of Chilean mental health professionals who were working with survivors of political violence during the Pinochet dictatorship it was further described by Agger and Jensen in their work with refugees in Denmark and with Holocaust survivors. All groups report that testimony functions both in private and in public realm as a means for individual recovery and a means of bearing witness to historical truths.Although testimony approach is not strictly a clinical intervention, many have noted that it offers the survivor clinical benefits. This observation was confirmed in our study of testimony psychotherapy with survivors from Bosnia and Herzegovina.As part of research activities of the 'Project on Genocide, Psychiatry and Witnessing' of The University of Illinois at Chicago, dr Stevan Weine and I conducted a pilot clinical trial of testimony psychotherapy, at the same time creating oral history archives, and creating awareness in the community of Bosnian refugees of the importance of documenting the survivors' narratives. In this work we were functioning as witnessing professionals, committed to helping individual survivor's recovery, but also to addressing the social and historical tragedy of genocide.. Because we saw testimony work from an interdisciplinary perspective, we also sought to create testimony documents that would move outside of the psychotherapeutic dyad and make connections with others in the scholarly, human rights, artistic, and survivors' communities.

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Subjectivity and Politics: The Psychotherapy of Extreme Traumatization in Chile

Cited by 17 publications

References 2 publications

Therapy with Victims of Political Repression in Chile: The Challenge of Social Reparation

Therapy with Victims of Political Repression in Chile: The Challenge of Social Reparation

Beyond Trauma

Testimony Psychotherapy for Genocide Survivors: Providing a Common Ground Between Treatment and Prevention of Human Rights Abuse

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