Trauma Rehabilitation After War and Conflict

"As foreign assistance flows into post-conflict regions to rebuild economies, roads, and schools, it is important that development professionals retain a focus on the purely human element of rebuilding lives and societies. This book provides perspective on just how to begin that process so that the trauma people suffered is not passed on to future generations long after the violence has stopped." - Amy T. Wilson, Ph.D., Gallaudet University, Washington, DC

"This ground-breaking text provides the reader with an excellent and comprehensive overview of the existing field of trauma rehabilitation. It also masterfully navigates the intricate relationships among theory, research, and practice leaving the reader with immense appreciation for its subject matter." - Hanoch Livneh, Hanoch Livneh, Ph.D., LPC, CRC, Portland State University

Fear, terror, helplessness, rage: for soldier and civilian alike, the psychological costs of war are staggering. And for those traumatized by chronic armed conflict, healing, recovery, and closure can seem like impossible goals.

Demonstrating wide-ranging knowledge of the vulnerabilities and resilience of war survivors, the collaborators on Trauma Rehabilitation after War and Conflict analyze successful rehabilitative processes and intervention programs in conflict-affected areas of the world. Its dual focus on individual and community healing builds on the concept of the protective "trauma membrane," a component crucial to coping and healing, to humanitarian efforts (though one which is often passed over in favor of rebuilding infrastructure), and to promoting and sustaining peace. The book’s multiple perspectives—including public health, community-based systems, and trauma-focused approaches—reflect the complex psychological, social, and emotional stresses faced by survivors, to provide authoritative information on salient topics suchas:

• Psychological rehabilitation of U.S. veterans, non-Western ex-combatants, and civilians
• Forgiveness and social reconciliation after armed conflict
• Psychosocial adjustment in the post-war setting
• Helping individuals heal from war-related rape
• The psychological impact on prisoners of war
• Rehabilitating the child soldier

Rehabilitation after War and Conflict lucidly sets out the terms for the next stage of humanitarian work, making it essential reading for researchers and professionals in psychology, social work, rehabilitation, counseling, and public health.

• Counseling
• Reconciliation
• Trauma membrane
• War captivity
• conflict
• coping
• emotion
• intervention
• prevention
• psychology
• rehabilitation
• social work
• stress
• trauma
• violence

"This book has all the ingredients of a classic.  Not only does it provide the reader with an excellent and comprehensive overview of the existing field of 'trauma rehabilitation,' it also masterfully navigates the intricate relationships among theory, research, and practice leaving the reader with immense appreciation for its subject matter.  This ground-breaking volume should be a required text for all graduate students and practitioners who seek to acquire in-depth knowledge of the field of trauma rehabilitation on their journey to becoming skilled rehabilitation psychologists, counselors and social workers. I highly and unequivocally recommend this text to all of the above audiences." 
-Hanoch Livneh, Ph.D., LPC, CRC, Portland State University

"In the devastating aftermath of war or other major conflict, development agencies tend to concentrate on the rebuilding of a country’s infrastructure, ensuring that basic human needs for food, shelter and water, and stable government are met. But too often the heaviest toll of conflict is the devastation of people’s minds and spirits; in the quest for ensuring material survival, it is this latter devastation that development organizations often overlook. The casualties of conflict are many - physical disabilities, mental illnesses, people torn from their social and familial support systems, each resulting in whole swaths of men and women left without any hope of earning their living. This book provides guidance to the development field on how to best heal the deep wounds suffered by a nation’s populace through the lens of post-conflict human rehabilitation. As foreign assistance flows into post-conflict regions with assistance designed to rebuild economies, roads, and schools - it is important that a segment of development professionals focus on the purely human element of rebuilding lives and societies. This book gives perspective on just how to begin that process so thatthe trauma people suffered is not passed on to future generations long after the violence has stopped."
-Amy T. Wilson, Ph.D., Program Director, M.A. in International Development Department of Educational Foundations and Research, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC

• Beaverton, USA

  Erin Martz

Erin Martz, Ph.D., C.R.C., the editor of this book, was an associate professor of rehabilitation counseling at the University of Memphis until December 2009. Prior to that, she worked as an assistant professor of rehabilitation counseling at University of Missouri, Columbia. She co-edited a book with Dr. Hanoch Livneh, which was published in 2007, entitled Coping with chronic illness and disability: Theoretical, empirical, and clinical aspects. She received a Fulbright Research Fellowship for Russia from the U.S. Department of State in 2006 and a Switzer Merit Fellowship from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research in 2001. Her research interests include the topics of disability and trauma, disability and employment, and international rehabilitation.

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