This article describes a theory-based intervention in Rwanda to promote healing and reconciliation, and an experimental evaluation of its effects. The concept of reconciliation and conditions required for reconciliation after genocide or other intense intergroup violence are discussed, with a focus on healing. A training of facilitators who worked for local organizations that worked with groups of people in the community is described. The training consisted of psycho-educational lectures with extensive large group and small group discussion, as well as engagement by participants with their painful experiences during the genocide, with empathic support. The effects of the training were evaluated not on the participants, but on members of newly set up community groups they subsequently worked with. Two types of control groups were created: treatment controls, groups led by facilitators we did not
The present study is the first to attempt to determine rates of panic attacks, especially 'somatically focused' panic attacks, panic disorder, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression levels in a population of Rwandans traumatized by the 1994 genocide. The following measures were utilized: the Rwandan Panic-Disorder Survey (RPDS); the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI); the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ); and the PTSD Checklist (PCL). Forty of 100 Rwandan widows suffered somatically focused panic attacks during the previous 4 weeks. Thirtyfive (87%) of those having panic attacks suffered panic disorder, making the rate of panic disorder for the entire sample 35%. Rwandan widows with panic attacks had greater psychopathology on all measures. Somatically focused panic-attack subtypes seem to constitute a key response to trauma in the Rwandan population. Future studies of traumatized non-Western populations should carefully assess not only somatoform disorder but also somatically focused panic attacks.
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