Healing Past Violence

Traumatic Assumptions and Therapeutic Interventions in War and Reconciliation

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5790141
AutoresCatherine Moon (0000-0003-2884-7687, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen8
Número1
Páginas71-91
Fecha de publicación2009-03-12
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Human Rights (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1475-4835 • E-ISSN: 1475-4843
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14754830902717726
OpenAlexW2136538927
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas33
Referencias 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