Collective
psychosis
Mental health workers in Middle East struggle to offer comfort amid chaos.
By WAYNE ANDERSON
Published Tuesday, August 27, 2002
The looks on their faces said it all. Earlier this month, a team of mental
health professionals from the University of Missouri-Columbia’s International
Center for Psychosocial Trauma conducted a five-day training program in Cairo,
Egypt, for their counterparts and physicians from Arab countries.
Forty of the 60 participants were Palestinian. They had trouble concentrating.
Having spent recent months dealing with the psychological aftermath of suicide
bombings and Israeli incursions into territory controlled by the Palestinian
Authority, the participants looked totally overwhelmed and overworked. Like
their clients, many suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and desperately
needed a week away from the front lines.
Some had to walk mountain paths to bypass Israeli checkpoints just to attend
the conference on violence and mental health. The other participants were professionals
from Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait and Yemen.
Although the University of Missouri-Columbia delegation, led by child psychiatrist
Arshad Husain, crossed the globe to provide assistance, it was impossible not
to learn from the participants.
Individual discussions provided insight into what the situation looks like
through the eyes of mental health workers who have to deal with the emotional
consequences of ongoing death and destruction in their Palestine.
These are good people. They bleed and hurt just like the rest of us, and their
religion is no protection from the grief, hopelessness and fear that have become
a focal point of their lives.
Jennifer Jordan, a Canadian psychologist with the Palestinian Red Crescent
Association, coordinates the work of a group of Palestinian mental health workers.
Her account of life in the West Bank is troubling.
"
Basically we’re living in a community with 3 million people under house
arrest," she said. "The curfew comes and goes. They lift the curfew
for a few hours every few days so people can get food. When curfew is on, you
can’t even go outside your door. I’ve found it is even dangerous
to show yourself at a window; they will shoot at you. Some children who took
a chance to play in the street have been shot at."
Because of the actions of suicide bombers, it’s a terrifying time to
be a Palestinian, Jordan said.
" They search for terrorists by going house to house, making mass arrests
of men 15 to 45 and putting them all in a school that is treated as a military
prison."
"
People who are stopped by soldiers may be beaten and things in their houses
destroyed," she added.
" Residents can be in the house when occupied by soldiers, but they are
not allowed to move freely."
Ambulance drivers and their families, she said, are among the most at-risk
psychologically.
