Víctimas de experiencias traumáticas, su testimonio y los efectos psicoterapéuticos

Abstract

In Refugio, an institution that gives attention to migrants in Germany, I was part of a team formed by a psychotherapist, a translator and an observer in which I was playing the last role mentioned. One of the people that received attention during the time I stayed in Refugio was Anna, a Young Muslim woman from Bosnia, ex Yugoslavia. The psychotherapy, that was directed by Ingrid Koop, the advance in Anna’s openness to elaborate on her experience, and the changes that she was having when her narration was attentively listened by us, were the occasion to reflect on grave traumas lived by people in genocides, wars and other forms of extreme cruelty. People that have gone through these desolating experiences present symptoms during the time in which the trauma is happening and afterwards. The defense mechanism with which they handle this kind of inasimilable experiences can be observed in the way they handle and feel their bodies, their emotions and by being in a kind of haze where they become numb as if they weren’t a part of themselves. On the other hand there is often a loss in the potential to symbolize. In this article we reflect and ponder about the conditions in which a trauma happens and the possibility or impossibility to narrate the traumatic experience, depending on personal and social differences. We also think about the potential of psychotherapy in cases of extreme traumas.