Staub, E. and Pearlman, L.A. (2006). Advancing healing and reconciliation. In Barbanel, L. & Sternberg, R. (Eds). Psychological interventions in times of crisis. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Advancing healing and reconciliation
Ervin Staub
The University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Laurie Anne Pearlman
Trauma Research, Education, and Training Institute, Inc.
Abstract
This paper describes varied uses in Rwanda between 1999 and 2005 of an approach aimed at promoting healing and reconciliation, developing positive relations between groupsfollowing genocide, and preventing new violence. The elements of this approach include understanding the origins of genocide, the traumatic impact of victimization/violence, avenues to healing, and the role of basic psychological needs in the origins of violence, trauma, and recovery. In our first project, we worked with staff of local and international NGO's that facilitate groups in the community. In subsequent research, reported in detail elsewhere, community members who participated in newly created groups led by facilitators trained in this approach showed a decrease in trauma symptoms and a more positive orientation to members of the other group, both over time and in comparison to participants in control and treatment-control groups. We subsequently used variants of this approach in seminars/workshops with journalists (on how to write about events, including the gacaca, in ways that promote healing and reconciliation), with national leaders (on how they can use the understanding of the origins of genocide and its traumatic impact to create policies and practices that prevent new violence and promote reconciliation), and with others. We are currently engaged in a large-scale public education campaign, primarily through the radio, that conveys these messages to the population at large. We note some current and potential practices that might facilitate or create problems for reconciliation and the building of a peaceful society. The approach described here may be applicable to other places that have experienced intense hostility, intractable conflict, mass killing, or genocide.
In this chapter, we describe an approach to promoting post-genocide psychological recovery, reconciliation, the development of positive relations between groups, and a peaceful society. We describe a number of projects we conducted in Rwanda between 1999 and 2004 in which we developed and evaluated this approach. We have used components of this approach with varied groups. These include staff of local and international non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) whose work ranges from community-building to reconciliation, leaders and field staff from survivor organizations, journalists, high-level national leaders, trauma counselors, commissioners of the Rwandan National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC), and others.
In the course of describing this work, we discuss some issues important in reconciliation and the prevention of new violence, such as a shared understanding of history (or collective memory). We comment on some current conditions in Rwanda that appear to facilitate or create problems for reconciliation and the building of a peaceful society. We also offer observations along the way about how outsiders or third parties might be most helpful in these processes.
Our work has been a response to a fundamental question that arises in the aftermath of genocide or intractable, violent conflict: after such violence, how can groups that continue to live together build a better, nonviolent future? While the approach we describe here was developed and used in Rwanda, it seems applicable to other places where violent conflict, mass killing, or genocide has taken place.
In recent years, especially since the activity of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, the necessity for reconciliation in the aftermath of violence between groups and ways to promote it have received a great deal of attention (Lederach, 1995, 1997). It has become apparent to many observers that violence between groups often resumes (de la Rey, 2001), even when it has ended with peace treaties and agreements. Segments of one or both of the groups may find the agreements unacceptable, and/or deep feelings of insecurity, hurt, anger and hostility may remain. The resumption of violence seems an even greater danger when genocide ends with victory by the victim group over the perpetrator group, as in Rwanda.
Reconciliation is a change in attitude and behaviors toward the other group. We define it as mutual acceptance by members of groups of each other, and the processes and structures that lead to or maintain that acceptance (Staub & Pearlman, 2001). While structures and institutions that promote and serve reconciliation are important, the essence of reconciliation is a changed psychological orientation toward the other. Reconciliation implies that victims and perpetrators do not see the past as defining the future. They come to accept and see the humanity of one another and see the possibility of a constructive relationship.
Following great violence between groups, especially genocide, reconciliation is a profoundly difficult challenge. It can only develop gradually, with likely setbacks along the way (Staub & Bar-Tal, 2003). Truth and justice have already become part of conventional thinking as requirements for reconciliation (see Proceedings of Stockholm International Forum on Truth, Justice and Reconciliation, 2002). Montville (1993) has suggested that healing from past wounds is important to reconciliation; we see it as an essential aspect of reconciliation.
The Impact of Victimization on Survivors and Perpetrators
The impact of genocide on survivors is enormous. Their perception of themselves and of the world is deeply affected. They feel diminished, vulnerable. The world looks dangerous and people, especially those outside one’s group, untrustworthy (Staub, 1998). These psychological disruptions may give rise to intense trauma symptoms such as nightmares, flashbacks, and emotional numbing, as well as disruptions in survivors’ world view, relationships with self and others, and identity (McCann & Pearlman, 1990a; Pearlman & Saakvitne, 1995). Since identity is rooted in part in group membership, even members of the victim group who were not present when the genocide was perpetrated may be greatly traumatized (Staub, 1998). In Rwanda, this means “returnees,” mainly children of Tutsi refugees from earlier violence who came back from neighboring countries after the genocide to devastated families and community. This traumatization may be especially likely since these returnees were not accepted and integrated in the countries of their former refuge, which strengthened their identities as Tutsi from Rwanda. Some of them came back as part of the Rwanda Patriotic Army, the mainly Tutsi army that entered from Uganda in 1990 and initiated the civil war. In 1994, the RPA defeated the government and ended the genocide. Others came in their wake.
The psychological consequences of victimization include extreme sensitivity to new threat. When conflict with another group arises, it may be more difficult for survivors to take the perspective of the other and consider the other’s needs. Without corrective experiences, they may believe they need to defend themselves even when violent self-defense is not necessary. In response to new threat or conflict they may strike out, in the process becoming perpetrators (Staub, 1998). Healing from psychological wounds, from the trauma that can result from victimization, is important to prevent such defensive violence and to enhance the capacity of the group for reconciliation.
Often perpetrators have endured victimization or other traumatic experiences as part of the cycle of violence. Their unhealed psychological wounds have contributed to their actions. Of course, the extent of their victimization may be substantially less than that of those they have harmed, which is certainly the case in genocide. Nonetheless, unless others acknowledge their injuries and they address them, they may be unable to shift from a defensive stance of self-justification to a position of accepting responsibility for their actions, paving the way for reconciliation.
Sometimes past trauma is fixed and maintained in collective memory; it becomes a “chosen trauma” that continuously shapes group psychology and behavior (Volkan, 1997). This seems to have been the case with Hutus in Rwanda. The first author had the opportunity to conduct a prison interview with the person who was justice minister during the genocide. As other Hutus have done, she referred to the group’s experience under Tutsi rule before 1959 (actually Belgian rule, the Belgians using the Tutsis to rule in their behalf) as “slavery.” While this statement may also be self-justification, this period does seem to be a chosen trauma in Hutu collective memory.
In addition, as recent studies have shown, people who engage in intense violence against others tend to be psychologically injured by their own actions (MacNair, 2002; Rhodes, Allen, Nowinski, & Cillessen, 2002). To protect themselves from empathic distress, guilt, and shame, perpetrators often distance themselves from victims. This distancing begins to develop in the course of the evolution of increasing discrimination and violence that usually precedes genocide (Staub, 1989). The lessening of empathy and compassion easily extends to other people as well. When the violence has ended, perpetrators often continue to blame victims and hold on to the ideology that in part motivated, and to them justified, their violence, in order to protect themselves from the emotional consequences of their actions. Those members of the perpetrator group who did not participate in planning or executing the genocide but were passive bystanders to it are likely to be similarly, although presumably less intensely, affected. Healing from the psychological consequences of their own or their group’s actions may enable people to see the humanity of the victims, to feel empathy, regret, and sorrow, and to become open to apology and reconciliation.
To summarize, healing from wounds that result from being harmed (see also Montville, 1993), having harmed others, or being a member of a group that has harmed others (Staub & Pearlman, 2001) seems important for reconciliation. Reconciliation is important to prevent a continuing cycle of violence, especially between groups that continue to live together. As healing begins, reconciliation becomes more possible.
Healing and reconciliation are interdependent, especially when groups that have engaged in violence against each other continue to live together. Healing is essential both to improve the quality of life of wounded people and to make new violence less likely--an overarching goal of our work in Rwanda. At least some limited degree of safety is needed for healing to begin (Herman, 1992; McCann & Pearlman, 1990a). Widespread severe poverty, the gacaca (community justice process), the release of many prisoners in 2003, the development of a constitution, democratic elections, and the continuing violence in the Congo have significant impact on people in Rwanda today. Nonetheless, healing processes are underway in the country, and apparently, many people feel safe enough to engage in such processes. As reconciliation begins, it increases the feeling of security and perhaps of actual security, which makes further healing easier. Progress in one realm fosters progress in the other in this cycle.
Promoting Healing and Reconciliation in the Community
In this section, we describe an intervention we developed to promote community healing and reconciliation, and we briefly describe an experimental evaluation of its effects. Our goal was to develop an intervention that people without advanced professional training could deliver, that facilitators could use with groups, and that one could readily integrate into other programs for healing, reconciliation, and community-building.
Developing a group, rather than an individual, intervention seemed essential for a number of reasons. First, the genocide affected most of the population of about 8,000,000 in Rwanda, making an individual approach to healing impractical. Second, the genocide was a community disaster, and healing as part of a group, in the community of others, seems more appropriate and potentially more effective. A group approach also seems more appropriate to Rwandan culture, which, like many African cultures, is community- rather than individual-oriented (Wessells & Monteiro, 2001). Further, one of the consequences of victimization is disconnection from other people (Saakvitne, Gamble, Pearlman, & Lev, 2000), and group healing can help people reconnect with others. Social support or connection is an important antidote to trauma, at least in the U.S. (Wortman, Battle, & Lemkau, 1997). Finally, reconciliation between groups requires the engagement of the whole population, and involving more people in interventions is essential.
Our intention has been to offer both information (content) and a way of delivering it (process) that others can use to augment their on-going work. This approach acknowledges the expertise of local staff, allows for cultural adaptation of the material, leaves control in the hands of the local facilitators, and allows each user to identify his/her own specific goals (e.g., healing, reconciliation, forgiving, group coexistence, improved adaptations to daily life).
Terminology. In the following description, we use several terms that we define here. Facilitators or facilitator-participants are the people who attended our seminars in 1999 and in the training-of-trainers in 2003-04. These people were professional helpers with various backgrounds and positions. Some were trained trauma counselors, others public educators for the national unity and reconciliation commission, still others front-line staff in local NGO’s, a few were staff of religious organizations. They facilitate a variety of types of groups in the community, and they were participants in our seminars, hence the (interchangeable) names, facilitators and facilitator-participants.
In describing our research, we use the term “integrated groups” to describe the experimental groups in which facilitators integrated our material with their usual approach to healing, reconciliation, and/or community building.
In our first project in 1999, we conducted a two-week seminar/workshop in Kigali with about 35 Rwandese staff of local and international NGO's that engage in healing and community building. About two-thirds of the participants were Tutsi, one-third Hutu. These participants would eventually facilitate groups in the community (we therefore refer to them below as facilitator-participants). Our local collaborators recruited them, mainly from organizations with which we made contact on our first trip in January 1999.
We developed a workshop based on theory, research, and experience with complex trauma and violence (Allen, 2001; Herman, 1992; McCann & Pearlman, 1990a; Pearlman & Saakvitne, 1995; Esterling, L'Abate, Murray, & Pennebaker, 1999; Saakvitne et al., 2000; Staub, 1989, 1998, 1999, 2003). The workshop included brief psycho-educational lectures with extensive large- and small-group discussions after each lecture, and an experiential component that gave participants opportunities to apply the material to their personal experience. Our objective was to provide participants with information that they could later use in their work with groups in the community, as well as opportunities to reflect on and process some of their own genocide-related experiences.
Staff from local NGO’s who attended a one-day meeting with us in January 1999 identified five elements as potentially useful in their fieldwork. These elements became the basis of much of our later work in Rwanda. We describe the five elements below.[1]
1. Understanding the effects of trauma and victimization and avenues to healing.
There is some tendency among professionals who provide assistance in the wake of psychosocial disasters to distinguish and contrast approaches focusing on trauma and on community building. From our perspective, the two approaches are not contradictory but can be integrated and can support each other. Our approach blends an understanding of complex psychological trauma with a community-centered approach to recovery.
Understanding psychological trauma, including both the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) and the profound effects of traumatic experiences on the self, perceptions of people and the world, and one’s spirituality, can contribute to healing (Allen, 2001; Rosenbloom & Williams, 1999; Saakvitne et al., 2000; Staub, 1998). Experiencing senseless, violent cruelty toward oneself and one’s group diminishes self-worth. Realizing that the way one has changed is the normal consequence of extraordinary, painful experiences can ease people’s distress and open the possibility for further healing.
Providing people with a framework for recovery offers hope, a fundamental aspect of healing (Saakvitne et al., 2000). Traumatized people often carry their pain and sense of danger into the present. Engagement with their painful experiences—remembering the events and feeling the emotions related to what happened--under empathic, supportive conditions, can help people move constructively into the future. It can also help them gain new trust in, and reconnect with, people.
Trauma specialists have found that another aspect of healing is creating a story of one's experience that makes sense of it. By symbolizing or representing traumatic experiences through narratives, dramatizations, or art, people can create meaning (Harvey, 1996; Herman, 1992; Lantz, 1996; Newman, Riggs, & Roth, 1997; Pennebaker & Beall, 1986), such as trying to prevent such suffering by others (Higgins, 1994). Indeed, some research has found that traumatic experiences stimulate a search for meaning (Tokayer, 2002).
Encouraging people to talk about their painful experiences, or exposure, can overcome the avoidance that maintains trauma symptoms (Foa, Keane, & Friedman, 2000). While there is some disagreement about the need for survivors to talk about their traumatic experiences (Bonnano, Noll, Putnam, O’Neill, and Trickett, 2003), the preponderance of clinical and empirical evidence suggests that doing so is helpful for many survivors. Survivors of sudden, traumatic loss also require a framework for understanding traumatic grief and the need for mourning (Rando, 1993).
We provide a broader understanding of the psychological aftermath of traumatic experiences, “beyond PTSD,” helping people understand the behavioral, cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, spiritual, and physiological sequelae of violence. We also convey to workshop participants that trauma does not imply psychopathology or dysfunction. Furthermore, communities can use a neighbor-to-neighbor approach to address trauma: we support people in participating actively in their own recovery. This framework seems to have energized and empowered the people with whom we have worked in Rwanda.