War on the Couch

Abstract

The emotional state of war-affected populations has become a central concern for international policy-makers over the last decade. Growing interest in war trauma is influenced by contemporary Anglo-American emotionology, or emotional norms, which tends to pathologize ordinary responses to distress, including anger related to survival strategies. The article critically analyzes the ascendancy of a therapeutic security paradigm in international politics, which seeks to explain the prevailing political, economic and social conditions in terms of cycles of emotional dysfunctionalism. The articles contends that international therapeutic governance pathologizes war-affected populations as emotionally dysfunctional and problematizes their right to selfgovernment, leading to extensive external intervention. However, international therapeutic governance may be detrimental to post-war recovery as well legitimizing a denial of self-government. A final proofed version of this article appeared in the

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

“…Victim-centered truth politics are, according to Pupavac (2004), politics of “emotionology.” Emotions are a source of mobilization and identification, and the major assumption is that hurt people have a lust for revenge. Therefore, victims should overcome anger and desires for revenge or retribution and not pacify or get rid of them through persecution and punishment.…”

Reconciliación y construcción de la categoría víctima: Implicaciones para la acción política en Chile

“…en este movimiento, la injusticia es reconceptualizada como daño psicológico que apela a una retórica emotiva del ser y del trauma invocado como auténtico sufrimiento, lo cual valida argumentos políticos, sociales y morales. así, a través de la construcción de la categoría de víctima, se ha adoptado, por parte del estado y del movimiento de víctimas, una política de la emocionalidad como una nueva fuente de legitimación (Pupavac, 2004). la experiencia violenta que hace que surja la categoría de víctima es resignificada en cada acto político, reproduciendo una retórica que deja la acción política y reivindicativa en la demanda de reparación de la experiencia pasada, reivindicación que deja inalterado el juego de categorías identitarias y posibilidades políticas ya establecidas e institucionalizadas.…”

Reflecting on the Psycholization of TRCs

“…Theorizing about international policy seems to have passed through similar processes as those that shaped the educational and developmental sciences (Pinar et al 1995), as a result of which this policy is strongly influenced by the same Anglo-American therapeutic ethos that has made the emotional state of victims of war a major concern (Pupavac 2004). These processes also have influenced international economic circles where, for example, the World Bank has adopted as a goal of development the therapeutic notion of well-being (Pender 2002).…”

“…These processes also have influenced international economic circles where, for example, the World Bank has adopted as a goal of development the therapeutic notion of well-being (Pender 2002). It seems, therefore, that Western policy has come increasingly to conceive needs in psychological rather than material terms: Social justice is reinterpreted as ensuring selfesteem and self-respect, and populations are now expected to take more responsibility for their material needs while not being trusted to manage their emotions without external supervision (Pupavac 2004). So much has psychology conquered suffering that, on the terrain of wars and in the sites of violence, psychiatrists and psychologists do not only utter diagnoses but now pronounce judgment (Fassin 2008).…”