How do we salve our wounds? Intercultural perspectives on individual and collective strategies of making peace with own past.

Abstract

This article reviews the strategies that have been applied across cultures in order to heal a wounded collective identity of societies upon large-scale conflicts and wars. The issues of truth, memory, and different models of justice executed within this process are discussed. Also, differences and similarities between individual and collective “healing” are explored and commented on. A general cross-cultural normative framework for conflict solving, collective “healing” and justice is neither possible, nor desirable. Models of restorative, retributive and reparative justice should be combined with reconciliation efforts. Societal problems should not be medicalized and individualized. Cultural sensitivity is crucial in designing proper strategies. The contextual model is the one that should be applied while making plans for rebuilding health and dignity after trauma on a collective level. “Healing” must be the outcome of structural and political changes and not their substitute.

Individual, collective, and transgenerational traumatization in the Yazidi

“…Against this background, it remains an open question whether suppression and avoidance might be better coping strategies. In many cultures, this represents a successful coping mechanism, and this is particularly true in collectivist societies in which social harmony is the highest priority [ 26 ]. Particularly in this case, the healing process is determined by the cultural and social context, and all efforts are made to ensure that the victim does not ‘lose face’.…”

Trauma and Pain in Family-Orientated Societies

“…Therefore, on the part of both the therapist and the health institutes, specific transcultural knowledge and the consideration of the social and political structures of the health institutes are necessary to be able to treat these patients early enough and adequately and in this way, for instance, to prevent a chronification of the illness [ 24 ]. In addition to multicultural teams of therapists, it is above all necessary to make all staff aware of the need to take a transcultural, culturally-sensitive perspective [ 29 , 30 ].…”

Pastoral Care with Children of War: A Community-Based Model of Trauma Healing in the Aftermath of Indonesia’s Religious Conflicts

“…Intercultural paradigms for pastoral care such as those offered by Lartey (2003) and Doehring (2012), together with peacebuilding frameworks, emphasize the value of local wisdom and the support of indigenous resources for dealing with conflict and its effects (Lederach and Lederach 2010). Intercultural perspectives on trauma theory recognize that culture and context shape how persons experience trauma and therefore must also be engaged in strategies toward healing (Drožđek 2010;Kira 2010). …”

“…Drožđek (2010), for instance, cautions against the Bmedicalization and individualization of societal problems,^suggesting that the use of healing language muddies the waters of post-conflict reconciliation work. And, in fact, simple importation of Western therapeutic modalities for addressing trauma, whether bodybased (such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR) or talk-oriented (such as trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapies, or TF-CBT) is not helpful, as these options remain largely unavailable to the majority of Indonesia's conflict-traumatized children and youth and may be culturally incongruent for them as well.…”