2012
Introduction
Violence against women is a widespread phenomenon that affects millions of women all over the world. War, armed conflicts and political upheavals are some of the reasons that oblige women to fleet their home countries in order to survive. Women and children are easy and strategic targets in the conflicts nowadays, situation that places them in an extremely vulnerable position.
Many refugee women have endured unimaginable horrors and survival has been possible at the expenses of living with the effects of trauma. Trauma affects people in different ways and not every person will suffer such effects. It will depend on the traumatic experience or experiences, on the individual and their unique characteristics and on their social networks and the support they may receive from them. Here, resilience plays an important role in helping women heal after living or witnessing devastating events and after arriving to the host country that many times is hostile and perpetuates their distress.
The process of becoming a refugee is harsh and exhausting. It implies facing discrimination, poverty and loss, but it is also the opportunity to embark on the creation and shaping of a new life and a new beginning.
The Effects of Trauma in the Lives of Refugee Women
It is important to understand that many refugee women have had their human rights violated, as most displaced people leave their countries due to war and political turmoil, escaping persecution, repression, torture and death. During war, women are targeted strategically in order to devastate the whole community. Rape is used as a physical and psychological weapon that destroys women’s lives and their families’ and humiliates and attacks the community in its core. Women are central figures in family life, so rape actually affects the whole family by bringing shame, rejection, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and physical disabilities. Rape applied systematically on women’s bodies is a way of genocide that ensures the devastation of the survivors and their future generations. After experiencing rape, many women are rejected by their families or their husbands’ families, facing poverty, homelessness and isolation. They are left alone in total destitution and suffering the psychological and physical consequences of the traumatic experiences they have undergone.
Trauma may permeate the psychological, physical and social facets of women’ lives. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – PTSD – is a psychological adaptive response to life threatening situations, such as those lived in war and conflicts, natural disasters, rape, domestic violence or accidents. The confrontation with death has a deep impact on human beings. Terror overwhelms the person and their brain’s capability to process the traumatic event. Normal brain functioning is interrupted, giving place to a more automatic response, led by the amygdala and the hypothalamus, which block the functioning of the frontal cortex and inhibits the hippocampus. This all means that the cognitive and planning skills are not available for coping with the trauma, and that the memory is dissociated in such a way that the past makes itself present in the person’s life, who re-lives the trauma in the here and now in the form of flashbacks and nightmares. Avoidance is also linked to PTSD, as those affected by trauma try to keep away from any stimuli that may remind them of it. People, places, thoughts are evaded in order to escape the thoughts of the traumatic event, with the associated risk of isolation. Emotional turmoil, eating and sleeping difficulties, lack of concentration and physical complaints will add up to the list of symptoms caused by PTSD.
Many refugee women will experience, after the arrival to the host country, what is known as cultural bereavement, as they are forced to separate from their communities, families, language, culture and everything they knew and were familiar with. The uproot is painfully experienced and transforms women’s identities, as they are dispossessed from all the references that gave meaning to their lives and their selves. They have lost their sense of self . Furthermore, these women are grieving for all they have lost and are at risk of developing pathological forms of mourning due to the impossibility to cope with this unthinkable pain. Complex grief is the concept used to describe this severe way of human suffering, caused by experiencing or witnessing atrocities that cannot be verbalised and that affects women’ s mental health and their ability to deal with life.
Trauma can paralyse victims’ lives. For those survivors of extreme violent situations, the scenario can be disconsolate. They have been touched and damaged in the most inner part of their selves after confronting inhumane evil and feeling the greatest despair. Soul death is a very extreme result of trauma and it tends to appear in those catastrophes that human beings create. Natural disasters can be traumatic as well, but do not present the factor of evil that brings the threat of annihilating the soul. In those cases of soul death, the person suffers a psychological collapse that is expressed in an inert and lifeless self. Life has lost its meaning and an existential crisis takes place. Recovery is possible with professional help, but for many women several years are needed in order to regain their lives.
Is it actually possible to recover from severe traumatic experiences? Are women able to restore their lives? Resilience is a key concept for answering these questions as it is understood as the capacity people have to cope with adversity and bounce back. Resilience is not a treat that a person possesses but the result of having secure attachments and belonging to a supportive ambience. In this way, resilience and protective environmental factors work together. A woman who has experienced nurturing and supporting bonds with her family and community and has developed the ability to cope with difficulties and change is a resilient woman that will be able to bounce back from trauma and its effects. On the contrary, a woman born in a hostile environment or subject to emotional neglect is in a vulnerable position and not able to build that resilience within herself. Here, the protective environmental factors that promote resilience are missing and vulnerability is reinforced. If this woman faces trauma in her life, she will be at risk of suffering its severe effects, as she is not psychologically robust to cope with such distress. However, she will be able to recover from trauma and its consequences if she can get the adequate help.
Traumatised refugee women who have received counselling and support were able to start a new life and flourish again in the host country. They have found, in their therapeutic relationships with their counsellors, those factors that contributed to the re-building of their lives. Counselling is the safe haven where they can initiate the journey of restoring their selves by facilitating the creation of self esteem, coping mechanisms and resilience. The therapeutic relationship provides women with a secure attachment experience that allows them to discover and accept themselves while developing strategies to recover and heal.
The concept of resilience will be now analysed in its four factors to show that counselling helps women recover from trauma and thrive by facilitating the restoration of those resources that trauma has undermined.
The I am factor refers to the woman’s identity and its traits, her self-concept and beliefs, which in a refugee woman are affected negatively. Violence has damaged her self-concept, making her feel worthless and confused on who she is. The work here will focus on rebuilding her identity by identifying her strengths and weaknesses and promoting acceptance of herself as a valuable woman. Supported by her counsellor, she will be able to develop a positive self-image and new abilities to cope with life. By altering her ideas and feelings over who she is, this woman is increasing her chances of solving problems and changing her life. Refugee women have been despised in different manners and finding acceptance in their counsellors can be the first step in accepting her humanity and identity again.
The I have factor relates to those available resources that women have. Many refugee women have lost everything before arriving to the host country and they need help and support. Counselling can be the first trustworthy relationship these women have, which will give them the opportunity to develop other relationships that will enrich their lives. The therapeutic relationship, based on respect and autonomy, is the setting where women can explore how they relate to others and the ways they want to do it, deciding by themselves what is best for their lives. Counsellors can also refer their clients to other agencies or groups where women can get help in housing for example, or join a refugees’ gathering to meet friends. Having relationships increases women’s self-esteem and external resources at the same time and counselling is the scenario where the needed trust is tried, rehearsed and developed.
The I can factors are the skills and abilities people have, their intelligence and talents and feelings and attitudes, that were eroded in refugee women after trauma took place. Women consider they cannot continue living or adapt to the host country, as they lack the tools to cope with life. Counselling provides the space for developing autonomy and self-respect and for discovering talents and strengths that will broaden their coping mechanisms, communication skills and self-knowledge. Once they know what they can do, it is easier to accept their limitations and ask for help. The therapeutic relationship may become the place where refugee women first face their potential and realise it.
Finally, the I will factor refers to the willingness to engage in activities that help recovery and plan a life. Thinking in the future and planning the recovery seem very difficult for traumatised women that are stuck in the past. However, psychotherapy can help women recover their hope in their future and give them the strength to engage in planning their healing and new life. It can be the experience of planning the future sessions what encourages women to think about their future with expectation and trust. Refugee women can find meaning again in their lives in the therapeutic relationship and therefore, outside it as well. They can start thinking of their new life in the host country while developing possibilities of what they want for themselves. With their counsellor’s support, they can sketch an action plan that will eventually transform their lives. Women are closer to thriving now, as they can picture themselves in their future roles and have gained the skills to start the journey.
Counselling helps refugee women survive when they first arrive to the host country in dealing with the symptoms and distress that trauma caused, but its benefits go further. Counselling facilitates the building of resilience by allowing women to discover their own strengths and abilities in coping with life and with the horrible experiences they went through. Women also find in counselling the tool to plan their future days.
Conclusion
Trauma affects refugee women in substantial ways, as they are the main victims of armed conflict and political revolts, as they are targeted for systematic rape, as they are left alone and separated from their families during war. Consequently, women suffer the psychological and physical effects of the traumatic experiences they have undergone.
Trauma and PTSD can torn women’s lives apart, freezing them in the past and invalidating their move towards the future, even when they have finally reached safety in another country that receives them. The symptoms of PTSD can be unbearable. They erode women’s mental health and stability by changing the brain’s normal functioning and preventing these women to control their lives.
Trauma has devastating effects on refugee women, but with professional support, they can start the journey of re-building their lives. Counselling empowers women by strengthening their resilience and capacity to cope with the difficulties they find. It facilitates the recovery from the grief for all they have lost, allowing them to mourn their old life and selves and to embrace the new one in the host country.
Bibliography
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Van der Veer, Guus (1998). Counselling and Psychotherapy with Refugees and Victims of Trauma. Chichester, John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Women and Girls Network (2011). Material for the Advanced Course in Counselling and Supporting Refugee Women. London, Women and Girls Network.