Healing Past Violence

Traumatic Assumptions and Therapeutic Interventions in War and Reconciliation

Dados Bibliográficos

ID5790141
AutoresCatherine Moon (0000-0003-2884-7687, autor correspondente)
Ano2009
Volume8
Fascículo1
Páginas71-91
Data de publicação2009-03-12
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Human Rights (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1475-4835 • E-ISSN: 1475-4843
EditoraTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14754830902717726
OpenAlexW2136538927
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas33
Referências citadas50

Since South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a therapeutic moral order has become one of the dominant frameworks within which states attempt to deal with a legacy of violent conflict. As a consequence, the grammar of trauma, suffering, repression, denial, closure, truth-revelation, and catharsis has become almost axiomatic to postconflict state-building. The rise of the postconflict therapeutic framework is tied, ineluctably, to the global proliferation of amnesty agreements. This article examines the emergence and application of two therapeutic truisms that have gained political credence in postconflict contexts since the work of the TRC. The first of these is that war-torn societies are traumatized and require therapeutic management if conflict is to be ameliorated. The second, and related truism, is that one of the tasks of the postconflict state is to attend to the psychiatric health of its citizens and the nation as a whole. The article shows how, and to what effect, these truisms

Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Migration, Health and Trauma · Torture, Ethics, and Law