Lindsay Doyle | Humanitarian Psychology

Ironically, I’m sitting in Atlanta attending the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and I’m shocked as I learn that Army Major Nadal Malik Hasan, a Psychiatrist working at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress Studies, went on a shooting spree at Ford Hood, TX.  Major Hasan recently completed special training in Disaster and Preventative Psychiatry at Walter Reed Medical Center.  Reports indicate that he was about to be deployed to a combat zone overseas.

I think this raises important issues about the trauma that individuals working in the Mental Health Field experience themselves.  Either in their individual, private lives (’wounded healers’), professionally- as front line medical specialists in dangerous environments, or secondarily, by working with victims of trauma. It also obviously underscores the agonizing mental battles that so many of the men and women serving in our military are fighting with themselves every day.

Half an hour ago I was in a room with many of the top trauma specialists in the world.  Quiet a few of them specialize in trauma and traumatic stress in military populations– of those, many are members of the military themselves.  I’m anxious to hear their feedback tomorrow. Odds are, some of them have met, worked with, or trained Major Nidal Malik Hasan.

Perhaps this incident will help break the culture of silence about the mental suffering of our soldiers, as well as about the escalating numbers of soldiers who externalize their pain– attacking themselves, their family members, or others.  At the very least, it’ll be interesting to see how this tragedy impacts the conversations about the US’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and the stress of multiple deployments on our soldiers.

What are your reactions to the shooting?

“The top United Nations humanitarian official today briefed the press at Headquarters on the situations in Yemen, Philippines, Indonesia and Uganda after his recent visits to those countries….” 29 October 2009: Press Conference by Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs

take a look!

The Kampala Convention is the first binding regional convention on internal displacement, which acknowledges both conflict and natural disasters as a source of displacement.  Hopefully, this  formal recognition of the vulnerable position of IDP’s will contribute to increased access and rights protection.

Kampala Convention on IDP\’s

Over the past two decades, the need for community-based psychosocial support in crisis response and development work has become increasingly clear. Psychosocial support empowers individuals and their communities to tackle emotional reactions of critical events and also creates community cohesion essential for adaptation, transforming problems into opportunities for sustainable progress and moving forward. Psychosocial support is vital in all Red Cross Red Crescent work. When provided, it builds resilience and strengthens coping. When left out, psychological and social challenges increase, leading to an increase in poverty, violence, mental and physical illness.

Community-based psychosocial support is an integral part of Red Cross Red Crescent work. This ten-minute long film, produced by the International Federation Reference Centre for Psychosocial Support, explains why such support is so important, and gives some examples of how psychosocial support is provided in the Movement.

Introducing Humanitarian Psychology

A concise introduction to how the concept of Humanitarian Psychology has been defined and developed by the Center for Humanitarian Psychology—- take a look!

Relief work of any kind takes place at the discretion of the host government- President Al-Bashir of Sudan’s decision to expel multiple aid agencies from his country in March of 2009 was a sharp reminder of this reality. Often, the international community plays a key role in how open or closed host governments are to humanitarian action on their soil.

Recently, the New York Times ran an Editorial discussing these issues- Backsliding on Human Rights. It ultimately argues that:

“The current disputes over human rights will crystallize over the next two years, as 2011 will see an inter-governmental review of the Human Rights Council. China, Russia and other illiberal powers may try to set further limits on the U.N.’s human rights role.The European Union, the United States and their remaining allies on human rights (such as the Latin American democracies) should form a high-level working group to prepare for the review. They should also talk directly to Moscow and Beijing about how to stop power politics in the Security Council from undercutting humanitarian aid, as it did over Sri Lanka. There is no point in celebrating America’s return to the U.N. if the U.N. cannot help the vulnerable.”

Meeting this past week, the Security Council was able to avoid a stalemate over issues such as Iranian nuclear power: some are breathing a sigh of relief.   However, Turkey– a member of the Security Council for 2009/2010– is preparing to raise the issue of  potential war crimes committed by both Israelis and Palestinians during the recent war in the Gaza Strip.  Turkey would like “accountability” for war crimes committed- but the US has insisted that this is an issue to be addressed by the Human Rights Council in Geneva, not the Security Council and may veto the issue.  (Glance at Turkey Wants UN body to discuss Gaza ‘war crimes’ for a fuller discussion of the situation).

If the US uses its veto power to stop a discussion  of the independent Gladstone Report covering war crimes by both sides, the issue may well be forced to the Human Rights Council, of which the US is a new member (the Human Rights Council was boycotted under President George W. Bush).  Either way,  the handling of this issue will further define the parameters by which Human Rights violations can and cannot be addressed in today’s world– this directly impacts the Humanitarian community at large. Stay tuned.

There is a lot of information about humanitarian psychology on the Internet and I’m working to organize it on this site.  Come back soon.

Thanks,

Lindsay Doyle