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Friday, September 05, 2008
The Passing of Dan Bar-On
 It is with great sadness that we heard today about the passing of Dan Bar-On. Dan has been an inspiration, mentor and friend to us in OPSI. Dan embodied the importance of dialogue and contact between people in times of conflict without romanticising what this entails. We will miss him as will so many others. He touched many people’s lives with his compassion and sharp intellect.
Dan Bar-On was born in 1938 in Haifa to parents of German descent. He was a member of Kibbutz Revivim for 25 years where he served as a farmer, educator and Secretary of the Kibbutz. After completing his M.A. in psychology in 1975, he worked in the Kibbutz Clinic, specializing in therapy and research with families of Holocaust survivors. In 1981 he received his Ph.D. at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1985 he launched a pioneering field research in Germany, studying the psychological and moral after-effects of the Holocaust on the children of the perpetrators. His book Legacy of Silence: Encounters with Children of the Third Reich was published in 1989 by Harvard University Press and has since been translated and published in French, German, Japanese and Hebrew. Since then, Bar-On has brought together descendants of survivors and perpetrators for five intensive encounters (the TRT group, shown by the BBC on TimeWatch, October, 1993), as well as students from the third generation of both sides. His book Fear and Hope: Three Generations of Holocaust Survivors' Families was published in Hebrew, English, German and Chinese .His last book The Indescribable and the Undiscussable was published in 1999 by Central European University Press. In 1998 and in 2002-3, Bar-On was the Ida E. King Chair for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton College of New Jersey. He is currently a Professor of Psychology at the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Ben-Gurion University, where he served as Chair of the Department in 1993-1995 and again in 2003-5. He is the co-director of PRIME (Peace Research Institute in the Middle East) near Beit Jala, PNA, together with Professor Sami Adwan of Bethlehem University. He is married, and has four children and four grandchildren.
 posted
by Brandon at 4:12 PM
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Fear in Gaza
The latest invasion of the Israeli defence forces IDF in the Gaza Strip ended with the massacre of the Al-Athamna family. A few days before the 8 November, when seven shells hit their house and killed 19 of them, “a tank entered the garden, destroying hothouses, trees, pipes and a generator, until it hit a wall. The soldiers made a hole in the wall and entered the house, gathered all the family members and sent the women to a room on the first floor. The men were put in the kitchen and bathroom. The soldiers collected all the cell phones, and with leashed dogs, searched all the rooms on all four floors. They called out the names of all the family members….After two hours, the soldiers left. They returned three days later through the hole in the wall. They again gathered all the family members, counted them, searched and left after three hours. ‘They knew very well who was in the house, how many children, how many women. They knew very well there were no terrorists and no arms in this house,’ said Majdi”, one of the surviving family members. (Amira Hass in Ha’aretz, 13.11.2006). – During the 9-day long invasion of Beit Hanun, altogether 80 Palestinians were killed and hundreds were wounded by the IDF.
David Becker and I arrived a day before the invasion started. We came to work with the team of the Women’s Empowerment Project of the Gaza Community Mental Health Project (GCMHP). This was our 7th visit; we had been training WEP staff twice a year in the psychosocial approach since 2004, when we began by working with the team on an accompanied self-evaluation of their program for the support of women affected by domestic violence (see publications:“Overcoming fragmentation – linking counselling and income generation”). This time, we spent many hours talking to the team members about their experiences of the preceding few months. Four hundred people have been killed since late June 2006, when the IDF intensified its operations in the Gaza Strip. These attacks were hardly noticed because of the media focus on Lebanon.
One of the team members mourned her fourth brother; he had been killed by gunfire from a helicopter a month before. The women talked about other close friends and neighbours they had lost. They said it was even more difficult to lose someone in the internal clashes between Fatah and Hamas than at the hands of the Israeli army. “If he is killed by the Israeli, he is a martyr, if he is killed by a Palestinian, the life is lost for nothing.” To make it worse, every death calls for another death in revenge. Families are divided, brothers are on different sides, and everybody is armed. But the women’s worst fears are of the Israeli operations. Six women had recently received a call that their house would be exploded.
Such calls, they said, are made by IDF 15 minutes before the house is destroyed. However, none of the staff’s houses was blown up. Nowadays, they said, it is very hard to know whether a call is real or if it is made by other Palestinians to terrorize people. One woman described how struck by panic she was when she received such a warning, unable to move or speak. “My hair stood up straight from my head, fear is the worst feeling - no words can describe it.” Others reported not being able to sleep for nights after such a call.
One woman said she and her children sleep in the same room: if the Israelis attack from the sea, she moves to the back of the house, if the neighbour receives a call that his house might be destroyed, she moves to the front of the house. The children cling to her.
When one of them wants to go to the toilet, she has to accompany him or her; but then the other children are scared to stay in the room alone and come along too.
All the women described how the children cling to them and wet their bed. Each staff member has had experience with bed-wetting children. Even though or because everybody recognizes bed-wetting as a symptom of fear and sadness, it is considered shameful.
When talking about their children, the fragmentation and disintegration of structure becomes evident. Adults can't really protect and calm their children as they are themselves too scared and too vulnerable. One woman said she didn't have the words to speak to her children about the killing of five people they recently witnessed. Another staff member described how she panicked when she saw her daughter coming back from the market, covered in blood. The girl stood next to a man who was shot in his head by another Palestinian. One woman described how she and her family were locked into their house for many hours, during another attack on their neighbourhood. A tank was positioned just outside their house. They heard the sounds of gunfire and soldiers conducting searches. Her husband, a political ex-prisoner, was terrified. As soon as the tank left, he shouted at his children; he was agitated and aggressive. “I told him to stop it, it is not the children, it is your fear,”
she said.
The staff members hardly mention such experiences when they talk about their clients, women who seek advice and support because they suffer from domestic violence. And yet, there is a clear connection between the deteriorating political and economic situation, the lack of perspectives, the decades of occupation and the daily experience of humiliation and powerlessness for men who try to defend their honor where they still can – in the family. The growing conservatism and the control of and restrictions against women in Gaza.
WEP works to supports victims of violence and supports campaigns towards changing discriminatory laws that condone and perpetuate such violence.
For additional background on violence against women in Gaza see the Human Rights Watch Report: A Question of Security. Violence against Palestinian Women and Girls http://hrw.org/reports/2006/opt1106/
Barbara Weyermann
20.11.2006
posted
by Brandon at 9:02 PM
Friday, October 20, 2006
Overcoming Fragmentation: Income Generation & Psychosocial Counseling
Barbara Weyermann from OPSI has just published the article "Overcoming Fragmentation: Links between Income Generation and Psychosocial Counseling in Gaza". Summary: armed conflict and violence affect women psychologically, socially and almost always economically. Support programs, however, often address these dimensions separately: women attend skills trainings to improve their economic situation and counseling sessions to deal with their traumas. Consequently, women are often unable to convert their skills into income or to improve their psychosocial situation. This paper presents the findings of a guided self-evaluation by a Palestinian non-governmental organization (NGO) in 2004, which both highlighted the insufficiencies of this fragmented approach and developed solutions to better serve the organization’s program
participants. To download the article visit our Publications Page.
posted
by Brandon at 9:46 AM
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Toolkit: Gender, Conflict Transformation & the Psychosocial Approach
In May 2006 OPSI completed the Toolkit: Gender, Conflict Transformation & the Psychosocial Approach. This was a major project undertaken for the Swiss Development Corporation. In developing the toolkit it was acknowledged that the literature on the issue of trauma is extensive, but at the same time is confusing and contradictory, and that a brief introduction into the subject matter of psychosocial work in the context of international cooperation does not yet exist. This toolkit aims to bridge that gap. It explains to both the staff of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) at the central office and the co-ordination offices and to the partner organisations how relevant the psychosocial way of thinking is for work in conflict and post-conflict areas. It also shows how regular development and relief activities can be adjusted in order to support the emotional and social recovery of the population. The toolkit does not, however, intend to replace psychological textbooks or manuals on gender and conflict transformation, or different areas and sectors of intervention, from HIV/AIDS to water and sanitation, but aims to convey a way of thinking and make suggestions as to how it can be put into practice. To read more about the toolkit and download it either in German or English, click here.
posted
by Brandon at 1:22 PM
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
First International Conference on Psychosocial Work in the Exhumation Process, Forced Disappearance, Justice and Truth.
First International Conference on Psychosocial Work in the Exhumation Process, Forced Disappearance, Justice and Truth. Guatemala, February 21 to 23 2007
The First International Conference on Psychosocial Work in the Exhumation Process, Forced Disappearance, Justice and Truth will take place in Antigua, Guatemala, February 21 to 23 2007 and is organized by the Guatemalan Community Studies and Psychosocial Action Team - ECAP (www.ecapguatemala.org), and the Spanish Community Action Group - GAC (www.psicosocial.net ). You will find more information here.
posted
by Brandon at 12:50 PM
Monday, December 12, 2005
Psychologists and torture: Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib
I was recently contacted by colleague and friend Brinton M. Lykes from the The Ignacio Martin-Baró Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights. She drew my attention to the fact that there is an increasing national concern in the US over the growing evidence that psychologists and other mental health workers have been directly involved in interrogations, and in some cases torture, of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere. In response a campaign has been launched against this.
She wrote: "In response to these realities of deep concern to many of us as psychologists and as US citizens, the Fund has launched a two-pronged petition campaign calling on both Congress and the American Psychological Association to commission independent investigations of this situation, and to take concrete action to put an end to these practices...We are seeking support not only from those who are professionally involved in mental health issues, but from everyone who is concerned about these issues. You need not be a psychologist or a member of the American Psychological Association to sign the APA petition, although if you are a member -- and want to let the APA know -- you can include this information in the "Affiliations" field of the response form.".
Both petitions are available from the Fund's home page: www.martinbarofund.org and from the petitions to the signature page. If you prefer to go directly to the petitions, the URLs for those are below:
Petition to Congress, click here.
Petition to APA, click here.
Signature page for both petitions, click here.
posted
by Brandon at 11:49 AM
Thursday, October 13, 2005
3rd International and Interdisciplinary Trauma Research Net Conference
Call for Papers
Conference theme: Trauma - Stigma and Distinction. The Social Ambivalences in the Face of Extreme Suffering.
14-17 September 2006, St. Moritz (Switzerland)
Deadline for proposals by e-mail: March 31, 2006. Decisions will be announced by e-mail before June 1, 2006. Provisional programme and registration information will be publishing at www.traumaresearch.net closer to conference time. For more details click here.
posted
by Brandon at 7:57 PM
Thursday, October 06, 2005
New Research: A Place for Reconciliation?
Grainne Kelly and I (Brandon Hamber), in our capacity as Research Associates to Democratic Dialogue (one of my other affiliations other than OPSI), have finally finished the final and large report on our study on reconciliation in Northern Ireland. The report is entitled: A Place for Reconciliation? Conflict and Locality in Northern Ireland.
The report includes our definition of reconciliation that has now been adopted by the EU PEACE II Programme and it explains the definition and the research that supports it in detail.
The research for the report was conducted in three case-study areas in Northern Ireland, where interviews were conducted with elected representatives, council officials and NGO representatives. It found ambivalence among practitioners on the ground towards the communalist politics of the council chamber and, amid some confusion as to the meaning of reconciliation, a willingness to embrace the definition we developed.
To download the report click here, or email me if you want a hard copy.
posted
by Brandon at 8:40 PM
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Professional Development Course: Reconstruction after Conflict and War
In February 2005 the Office of Psychosocial Issues, an international organisation and group of consultants based at the Free University in Berlin, will be offering a Professional Development Course on Reconstruction after Conflict and War. The course aims to utilise the skills of two international facilitators working in the area of psychosocial support, community development and trauma management. The course is targeted at community workers and staff working directly with and supporting victims/survivors of political conflict. The 6–day course, for a maximum of 20 participants, will be held in two parts, the first in Northern Ireland and the second part in at a time and place to be confirmed. The course is awaiting accreditation from the Open College Network. Full funding is available for Northern Ireland-based participants and the event will be residential based. For more information download course information by clicking here.
posted
by Brandon at 3:16 PM
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Directory of Open Access Journals
The Directory of Open Access Journals service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. They aim to cover all subjects and languages. There are now 1366 journals in the directory. Currently 334 journals are searchable on article level. As of today 61433 articles are included in the DOAJ service. Visit the site at: http://www.doaj.org/
posted
by Brandon at 1:03 PM
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