Social (dis)order and psychosocial trauma: Look earlier, look outside, and look beyond the persons.

Abstract

The most common and extreme suffering humankind has ever experienced comes from interpersonal and collective intentional violence. In dealing with traumatic outcomes psychology must overcome the mutually constitutive interaction between the (dis)order of a given macro or microsocial context and the mental health of the persons living in it. Social psychologist Ignacio Martín-Baró addressed in a preferential way the study of civil war in El Salvador in terms of intergroup hostility and polarization. He also approached the aftereffects of war by means of a theoretical core assumption: that traumatic experience rooted in collective violence (a human-made stressor) should be understood bearing in mind its social roots (pretraumatic situation), its personal and collective harm (collective injury), and the destruction of the social fabric. These are the arguments for his conceptualization of psychosocial trauma. Twenty-six years after the violent murder of Martín-Baró, along with 5 Jesuit priests, a housekeeper, and his teenage daughter, the current authors have adopted his general framework. Based on new theoretical insights and supporting data, the authors propose an expanded 4-dimension theoretical argument on psychosocial trauma: (a) pretrauma conditions based on social distress, (b) shared network of fear leading to breakdown of core social assumptions, (c) the outgroup as a target of negative emotions, and (d) destruction of family ties and community networks.

Post-traumatic cognitions and quality of life in terrorism victims: the role of well-being in indirect versus direct exposure

“…Finally, as expected, victims exposed directly (vs. indirectly) reported less PWB and SoWB. These results are in line with the Psycho-Social Model of Trauma [ 17 , 46 ], which postulates that traumas caused by intentional violence have accumulating and enduring emotional, social, and political consequences. Therefore, the impact of direct (vs. indirect) traumas on victims’ health was greater, both from a psychopathological and positive function perspective.…”

“…However, only a few trauma victims develop psychopathology (e.g. PTSD; [ 17 , 18 ]) and many who initially develop PTSD recover over time without clinical treatment [ 19 ]. To explain these results, Foa and her colleagues suggested that PTSD is a consequence of disruptions in the normal processes of recovery related to dysfunctional cognitions (Emotional Processing Theory, EPT [ 12 , 20 ]).…”

Violence in the workplace: some critical issues looking at the health sector

“…As we have already noted, violence against nurses should be understood as a way of collective violence (WHO, 2002, p. 215). In this case the emotional impact should be defined as psychosocial trauma (Blanco et al, 2016) rather than a strictly psychic trauma, as it is presently construed.Even though the hurt and emotional impact of violence on health workers has not commanded the attention of many researchers (e.g., Hills and Joyce, 2013), in the future this should be a central research topic.It should be put in place institutional policies of assistance and support against violence and, above all, to endow them with real effectiveness. In other words, it is of utmost importance to recover the trust of nurses in health institutions and organizations they belong or where they work, something that the present research has found wanting in most countries.Following the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound, 2016) is highly desirable to take organizational climate as a framework to explore original forms of intervention.…”

“…As we have already noted, violence against nurses should be understood as a way of collective violence (WHO, 2002, p. 215). In this case the emotional impact should be defined as psychosocial trauma (Blanco et al, 2016) rather than a strictly psychic trauma, as it is presently construed.…”

Moderating Effect of the Situation of Return or Relocation on the Well-Being and Psychosocial Trauma of Young Victims of the Armed Conflict in Colombia

“…History marks them: the more than 60 years of violence caused by a sociopolitical conflict that has not ceased. Collective violence is a phenomenon of great instrumental and emotional impact (Arendt, 2005;Blanco et al, 2016). The depth of the sequelae generated by this phenomenon has strong repercussions at an individual level, in terms of the destruction of a life project, and at a collective level, in the destruction or reformulation of social and support networks (Thompson and Walsh, 2010).…”