Our purpose in this special volume is to shed light upon women's wartime experiences, and to make sense of their coping strategies in the face of the innumerable atrocities committed against them. The war in question is that which accompanied the break-up of the Former Yugoslavia, and it is one with which I am all too familiar, having spent the past four years in Holland researching women's treatment at the hands of the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague. Needless to say, exposure to the effects of war has provided both me and the contributing authors with a new perspective on the relationship between justice and recovery, and the impact of enormous and repeated trauma on helpers and victims. Moreover, one might argue that analysis of this conflict makes manifest issues that are of vital significance to feminist psychotherapists in particular, and to those working in the healing professions more generally.
Wars Make Visible the Declared and Undeclared Wars Against Women
Violence against women is magnified during armed conflicts, in the process exposing the artificiality of the boundary between "wartime" and "peacetime" violence. Indeed, one might even go so far as to say that attacks upon women in conflict zones are simply one more manifestation of the "undeclared" war upon women everywhere.
Challenging the Erasure of Women's Victimization ill Wartime
To a large extent, war crimes committed against women have been marginalized, trivialized or ignored by the International Tribunals charged with investigating them. In this way, challenging the erasure of women's experiences is central to the political struggle against male violence, whether in the detention camps of Bosnia-Herzegovina, or in the suburbs of Los Angeles. At a personal level, I have found few things more shocking than the juxtaposition of clear evidence of atrocities committed against women on the one hand, and their absence from most accounts of the war in the Former Yugoslavia on the other.
It is generally accepted that the majority of casualties in armed cont1icts are women and children. While not wishing to suggest that contemporary jurisprudence has suddenly broken with its misogynist past and prioritized the interests of these groups, attention is increasingly being focused upon the rights of victims (see Odio), with impunity seen as an impediment both to justice and to peace. This is an important point, and one which feminist therapists would do well to bear in mind: atrocities, including rape, need to be publicly acknowledged as war crimes and their perpetrators punished rather than the victims, as is usually the case in instances of sexual violence (see McDonald; Viseur-Sellers). Thus, it makes sense for us to work with institutions that punish crimes against women, and push them towards strong forms of redress and unequivocal condemnation of rape and other manifestations of male violence.
Wars Make Explicit the Links Between Treatment and Advocacy
Although feminist therapy and ethics have always placed great emphasis upon the integration of theory and practice, this becomes especially important in the context of armed cont1icts such as that of the Former Yugoslavia. How so? In short, an activist stance in the fight against impunity may very well have a direct impact upon collective and individual healing, to the extent that feminists are able to persuade International Tribunals to recognize rape as the war crime and torture that it is. If we are successful in doing so, this could, as Nancy Kelley states, " ... change things for women all over the world" (Chesler, 1996, p. 56), as well as helping us overcome powerful feelings of helplessness and despair (see Scheft1er and Mi.ichele).
War Crime Tribunals Force the Perpetrator to Take Center-Stage
By focusing attention upon those responsible for war atrocities, International Tribunals provide a basis for the public repudiation of perpetrators and the acts they have committed. In this way, justice becomes a way of expediting individual and collective recovery.
Wars Necessitate the Adoption of Broad-Based Models of Healing in Which the Search for Truth Plays an Integral Role
In the recent past, we have seen numerous examples of "truth commissions," such as those organized in South Africa or Guatemala, in which immunity from prosecution is traded for public admission of guilt. Whatever the strengths or weaknesses of such an approach, it does offer victims and families a chance to confront the perpetrator, and listen to him describe his crime and ask for forgiveness. Moreover, in Latin America in particular, there is also a tradition of victims coming forward to speak publicly about the violence committed against them, in the process breaking the silence and gaining the solidarity and support of other witnesses. Taken together, these approaches provide useful markers in helping us to find more communal ways of helping victim..<> of violence, for example, by instituting "abuse tribunals" in which victims learn how to overcome self-blame and face those who victimized them in the first place (see McDonald; Viseur-Sellers; and Odio [interviews]).
War Alters Notions of Trauma
As one might imagine, not only does war trauma highlight the inadequacies of current psychotherapeutic theory and practice, but it also shows how our emphasis on the individual ignores the degree of traumatization within communities more generally. Moreover, given the magnitude of the suffering, it is difficult for some of us not to think politically, and see healing and recovering as possibilities only if existing social structures are radically transformed: there is no recovery from injustice that has not ceased; there is no healing when traumatization reoccurs on a daily basis.While such a perspective leads us, on the one hand, to make explicit the links between "wartime" and "peacetime" victimization of women, on the other it forces us to re-evaluate the interrelationship between the justice system in general, and psychotherapy in particular.
We must ask ourselves whether the justice available to war victims in the International Tribunals is therapeutic. If we answer affirmatively, does it not behoove us, as therapists, to expand our understanding of therapy when working with "peacetime'' victims of violence? Indeed, one might even go so far as to argue that the judicial system, in championing reconciliation and the rehabilitation of victims, is introducing psychological and therapeutic elements into its mandate. In similar fashion, therapists would gain by learning and drawing inspiration from recent trends in jurisprudence, since both justice and healing are crucial if the victimization of women is to be effectively challenged.
Such a perspective, adopted by many of the contributors to this volume, demands that psychologists work with a far wider range of actors than has traditionally been the case (see Anderson). In this way, attention is shifted from individual women to the wider structures in which they are embedded, whether these serve to oppress and dominate, or to foster justice and peace to the world. Needless to say, at an individual level, this understanding calls for healing methods that are contextual and global, and focused on causes as much as effects (see Scheffler and Miichele).
Wars Highlight the Secondary Traumatization of Healers and Our Unwillingness to See Ourselves as Part of the Collective Damage
As I have suggested above, therapists working in war zones must reorient themselves from the intra-psychic to the social. Within that context, not only does our vicarious traumatization as healers become evident, but we are confronted with the impossibility of remaining neutral or detached from the sociopolitical forces that led to our clients' victimization in the first place (see Scheffler and Miichele). Obviously, there are certain dangers inherent within this state of affairs, including the likelihood that one will become caught up in the collective psyche of those with whom one is working (see Kramer; Scheffler and Miichele; and Foeken), and the risk that a colonial relationship will develop between survivors and healers on the one hand, and foreign and local professionals on the other (see Ostodic). As such, one of the recurring themes of this book is the danger of relying too heavily upon intra-psychic medical models in a war context. Needless to say, such approaches are naive at best, and unethical at worst. Indeed, I would go so far as to ask practitioners working in the "undeclared" war zones of Europe, North America and elsewhere also to reflect upon the ethics of de-contextualized interventions that do not take into account the institutionalized and systematic nature of violence against women.
Wars also serve to raise a number of other questions for feminist psychotherapists, including most notably those related to the existence of evil in our midst. How does it become so prevalent within a given social context? What happens to individuals who are witnesses or subject to evil acts? As one might imagine, these issues can only be addressed if we seek out the sources of the evil and learn how to face them in all their enormity and power. For the legal system in particular, this involves offering justice to the victims and punishment to the perpetrators, in the process rendering future conflicts and acts of vengeance less likely. Therapists would do well to learn from such an approach, and adopt a perspective that is sensitive not only to the suffering of individuals as a result of abuse, but also to the collective trauma that comes from living in a world filled with violence and despair. In short, Western psychotherapists tend to devote too much effort to the task of fostering intra-psychic recovery, and too little to that of restoring individuals at a community level, for example through victim testimonies, rape museums, public declarations of contrition by perpetrators or funds and monuments for survivors. While this is not to suggest that psychotherapy is superfluous or unnecessary, it must be accompanied by broader-based interventions as well.
There can be little doubt that the war has changed the perspectives of all those who have contributed to this volume, making us realize that, if we are to move forward in the treatment of rape victims, we must de-stigmatize the survivors while stigmatizing the perpetrators, both by accusing them publicly of their crimes, and by sending them to prison. Moreover, we have also learned that traumatization of those working with war victims is inevitable, not only from the perspective of countertransference, but also in terms of the war's impact upon the very essence of our being, causing us to question our existence, our choices, and what altruism and morality mean for ourselves and our communities. Thus, for the three interviewees in particular (McDonald; Odio; and Viseur-Sellers), they all make reference to a similar range of issues with which they have had to contend while working at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY): evil, racism, sexism, and the trauma that comes from being exposed to war crimes testimony on a daily basis. In another instance, I asked one of the contributors why she had not gone for therapy in the two years since she had left the Balkans, despite suffering severe traumatization. In reply, she said, "I have been too incapacitated to do so." I then asked her how she would have reacted had one of her clients told her that. She laughed, and I joined her. In all too many cases, healers forget to take care of themselves while in the midst of looking after others.
In this collection, we gather together the voices and perspectives of a number of women whose work has brought them face to face with the hatred and violence of the Yugoslav conflict. They include a gender specialist and two .iudges involved in the ICTY in the Hague; a Serbian feminist and founder of the Women's Autonomous Center in Belgrade; the North American coordinator of Psychologists for Social Responsibility; a Bosnian psychologist engaged in research into the complexities of women's networking at an international scale; two Norwegians involved in the implementation and assessment of programs designed to help traumatized female survivors in Bosnia-Herzegovina; a team of German psychotherapists engaged in training activities for Bosnian para-professionals; a Dutch psychotherapist also involved in the training and supervision of local health workers; the German founder of one of the first treatment centers for women to be opened in Bosnia-Herzegovina; a Dutch social scientist offering advice and a new vision on treatment interventions; and finally the special editor herself, who conducted the interviews, gathered the voices and bore witness to the women's testimony.
All of these individuals are intrinsically connected to one another. As a scholar researching the activities and mandate of the International Tribunal, I developed a relationship with the three women interviewed for this volume. I met Anne Anderson in the Hague when she took part in one of the consultation sessions organized for the Tribunal by Psychologists for Social Responsibility. As for Edita Ostodic and Gabriele Kramer, I got to know them through my friendship and close collaboration with one of the founders of Medica Mundiale. This latter individual also introduced me to Sabine Scheffler and Agnes Miichele who had previously provided training to Medica personnel. She also served as a point of contact for Berit Schei and Solveig Dahl, whose team was also based in Zenica and often collaborated with Medica. Turning to Ingrid Foeken, I had been friends with her in Holland many years ago, and we reestablished our friendship when I returned to the country. As an individual closely associated with the activities of Admira in the Former Yugoslavia, she is an especially well-qualified contributor to this publication; she is also the one who recommended her friend Anja Meulenbelt. Finally, the circle closes with Lepa Mladjenovic, who agreed to participate in this project after approaching Ingrid for help and support, who subsequently put her into contact with me. While I do not pretend to suggest that the views of these authors are necessarily representative of all those who have ever worked with war survivors in the Former Yugoslavia, they are nonetheless women who care deeply about other women, and who found themselves in a foreign land or with foreign visitors at a time of profound horror and devastation.
REFERENCE
Chesler, P. (Winter 1996). On the issues: The progressive woman s quarterly, p. 56.
Address correspondence to: Sara Sharratt, PhD, P.O. Box 2292-1000, San Jose, Costa Rica.
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]:"Introduction."Sharratt,Sara. Co-published simultaneously in Women & Therapy(The Haworth Press,Inc.)Vol.22, No.I, 1999, pp.1-6; and: Assault on the Soul: Women in the Former Yugoslavia (ed: Sara Sharratt and Ellyn Kaschak) The Haworth Press, Inc., 1999, pp.1-6. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-342-9678,9:00a.m.-5:00p.m.(EST). E-mail address: getinfo@haworthpressinc.com].
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