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PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTIONS, MOTIVATIONS AND ACTION
PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR
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PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTIONS, MOTIVATIONS AND ACTIONS
PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR
EDUARDO MANUEL ALVAREZ

AND
ARTURO JOSÉ ESCOBAR

EDITORS
Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

New York
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Additional color graphics may be available in the e-book version of this book.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Psychology of war / editors, Eduardo Manuel Alvarez and Arturo Josi Escobar.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN: (eBook)
1. Children and war. 2. Child psychology. 3. Psychic trauma in children. 4. War--
Psychological aspects. I. Alvarez, Eduardo Manuel. II. Escobar, Arturo Josi.
HQ784.W3P78 2012
362.88--dc23
2011045802
Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. † New York
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Chapter 1 "We Want No More War": Political Polarization
and Democratic Consciousness in a Group
of Venezuelan Children 1
Alejandra Sapene
Chapter 2 Children’s Psychological Distress and Needs in
Northern Uganda’s Conflict Zone: An Assessment
of Stakeholders’ Conflicting Engagements 33

Grace Akello, Annemiek Richters, Ria Reis
and Charles B. Rwabukwali
Chapter 3 The Psychology of Heroes: Antecedents and
Consequences of Combat-decorated War Heroism 63
Brian Wansink, and Koert van Ittersum
Chapter 4 Disorganization of the Collective Envelopes and
the Breaking-in of the Ego of the Child in the
Experience of War (Lebanon – July/August 2006) 93
Léla Chikhani-Nacouz, Hélène Issa,
and Mounir Chalhoub
Chapter 5 Jewish Children Hidden in France between 1940
and 1944: Their Psychic Construction 115
Marion Feldman
Index 131
PREFACE
This book presents current research in the psychology of war. Topics

discussed in this compilation include psychosocial processes of a group of
children in an experimental situation of political polarization and war;
children's psychological distress and needs in Northern Uganda's conflict zone;
antecedents and consequences of combat-decorated war heroism;
disorganization of the collective envelopes of the child in the experience of
war and the psychic construction of Jewish children hidden in France during
the Holocaust.
Chapter 1- This research describes the psychosocial processes of a group

of children in an experimental situation of political polarization and war,
framed within the area of political social psychology. It was conducted with a
group of children, aged between 11 and 2 years old of middle social-economic
status, in the city of Caracas, Venezuela.
A game situation was designed, in which, through dramatization of a
fictional situation, the researcher presented the children a situation of
polarization, and then divided them in two groups. This investigation was
made in 7 sessions, and each one of them lasted one hour. In these sessions,
the children were divided in groups and made activities designed to understand
the psychosocial effects generated by the game situation and reflect upon these
effects.
Chapter 2- During the prolonged armed conflict in Northern Uganda, the
state through its Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) and non-
governmental organisations (NGOs) were based in the conflict zone to protect
and promote psychosocial well-being of the civilians.
Nevertheless people in this region continued to be exposed to dangers of
wartime and psychosocial suffering. This chapter seeks to assess the
viii Eduardo Manuel Alvarez and Arturo José Escobar
conflicting roles played by the state and NGOs, also called humanitarian
agencies in the prevention and alleviation of psychological distress. While the
authors address this issue, children’s perspectives about suffering, distress,
survival and lack of appropriate care will constitute their main empirical
evidence. The field data provided in this chapter are based on one year of
ethnographic fieldwork in Gulu district in 2004-2005. The doctoral research
focused on experiences of displaced children aged 8-16 years, including ex-
combatants, who had fled to a relatively safer Gulu municipality from the
districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader. Additional informants included teachers,
camp leaders, NGO coordinators, nurses, counselors, and medical doctors. The
field data are complemented by data derived from literature review.
Chapter 3- Which soldier in a platoon is most likely to be a future hero? A
unique, proprietary survey of 526 World War II combat veterans shows two
distinct profiles of combat-decorated veterans. While both rate highly on three
common personality characteristics – leadership, loyalty, and risk-taking – the
strength of these dimensions vary between those who were eager to enlist
(eager heroes) versus those who were drafted or otherwise reluctant to enlist
(reluctant heroes). While one might look more like John Wayne in The Green
Berets, the second looks more like Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan. These
findings offer two key contributions. Conceptually, these profiles in heroism
can help us better understand leadership in crisis situations. Operationally,
these profiles may aid recruiters of future soldiers – along with fire fighters,
police officers, and rescue workers – by knowing what characteristics in
potential employees might best reflect the potential for heroic leadership. They
also offer insights as to how training can develop heroic potential.
Chapter 4- The objective of this study is to analyze the effects of the
disorganization of collective envelopes (deficit of social time, of socialization,
of group memory, of a common future, etc.) on the psychological envelopes
supporting the organization of time, space, thought, memory and dream in the
child.
The study proposes that war in itself is not the cause of the child’s trauma,
but rather the destruction of the social envelopes, and in particular the de-
structuring of the symbolic. When the anxiety of the present is what
determines the future, when space-time dimensions are in chaos, when the
social field is fraught with turbulence, what happens to the child?
Using semi-structured clinical interviews with 30 Lebanese children aged
9 to 13 years old (who were 6 to 10 years old during the 2006 conflict)
exhibiting post-war symptoms, the authors have analyzed the disruption of
Preface ix
certain collective envelopes, namely, temporality, cultural space and cross

generational encystment.
Chapter 5- In 1991, the first international meeting of Jewish children
hidden in Europe during World War II is organized in New York. Before this
event, the psychology literature use to talk about survivors, mainly adults
survivors of the Holocaust. A few studies concerning children survivors of the
Holocaust, and more specifically hidden children appeared only in the 90’,
forty seven years after the Liberation. The aim of this chapter is to show the
impact of collective history on individual history: the experience of Jewish
children hidden in France and who stayed in France following Liberation. A
series of semi-structured interviews on personal and psychological history was
conducted with 35 Jewish people, (21 women, 14 men; mean age of 74.9
years, range: 65-82 years), living in France and who had been hidden between
1940 and 1944 during the Occupation in France. Using a qualitative
methodology, the author identifies specific traumas, intra- and inter-
generational family disorders and affiliation disturbances, and, alongside this,
protective factors and ways of coping with the trauma. This study considers
the specific and complex situation of the Jewish children hidden in France,
who presents specific features in their psychic construction.
In: Psychology of War ISBN: 978-1- 61942-312-1
Editors: E. Alvarez and A. Escobar ©2012 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Chapter 1
"WE WANT NO MORE WAR":

POLITICAL POLARIZATION
AND DEMOCRATIC CONSCIOUSNESS
IN A GROUP OF VENEZUELAN CHILDREN
Alejandra Sapene
“Andres Bello” Catholic University, Caracas, Venezuela
ABSTRACT
This research describes the psychosocial processes of a group of
children in an experimental situation of political polarization and war,
framed within the area of political social psychology. It was conducted
with a group of children, aged between 11 and 2 years old of middle
social-economic status, in the city of Caracas, Venezuela.
A game situation was designed, in which, through dramatization of a
fictional situation, the researcher presented the children a situation of
polarization, and then divided them in two groups. This investigation was
made in 7 sessions, and each one of them lasted one hour. In these
sessions, the children were divided in groups and made activities
designed to understand the psychosocial effects generated by the game
situation and reflect upon these effects.
Results indicate that the gender of participants affects the
consequences of political polarization and war. The concepts of war and
conflict, and leadership building within conflictive polarization situation,
as well as the offensive weapons chosen during the conflict, were some of
2 Alejandra Sapene
the observed phenomena during this investigation. Thus, it started a

process of political polarization, distinguished by the forming of a group
identity, recognition and identification with the leader and
disqualification of the unaligned. It also generated a process of political
“depolarization”, as a way of rejecting the war situation. The reflective
aspects of the intervention changed the behavior of the group, promoting
and raising awareness through interactions based on respect and tolerance
among participants, and rejecting war and polarization. The change in
participants was analyzed with detail due to the registering (sound
recording and observation) of each session; and these results were also
corroborated by the significant adults involved in the activity, and by
external adults as well.
RESEARCH CONTEXT
Between May and June 2006 I carried out a research about political
polarization in children, in Caracas, capital city of Venezuela, where I live.
Since his election in 1998, and from the beginning of his government,
President Hugo Chavez (HC) has fostered an atmosphere of political
polarization marked by the frequent use in his speech, of threatening phases
(Montero, 2003) that have become part of everyday life. At the same time,
opposition groups have made continuous alerts about the communist danger,
as well as the immediate possibility of a democratic break followed by a
dictatorial regime. Moreover, his main contender during the 1998 elections,
Irene Sáez, accused candidate HC of still having blood on his hands because of
the deaths that happened during the failed coup d’Etat he led in 1992. During
the electoral campaign; the political atmosphere was already beginning to be
polarized, showing a clear division between the adversaries and the followers
of Lieutenant Colonel Chavez.
Origins of the Political Polarization in Venezuela
Following his election in 1998, President Hugo Chavez first year in office
was marked by an atmosphere full of expectation in which an important sector
of the population explicitly decided to support his political project. But the
most evident break point in terms of social polarization occurred at the
beginning of 2001. In that year, a social movement, associated with political
opposition groups, started to publicly protest against a Decree proposed by the
"We Want No More War" 3
Minister of Education. That Decree mentioned the government’s control over

the schools. A description can be seen in the note published by a main
Venezuelan journal, with national coverage, about those protests:
Even though the pretext was to deliver the educational law project written
by the civil society, thousands of parents – in their majority middle class
mothers and members of private schools communities – took advantage
to express, in front of the Legislative Palace, seat of the National
Assembly, their disagreement with the Decree 1011 and manifested their
fear towards the “students indoctrination and the schools’ cubanisation’”
(El Nacional. Retrieved July 20, 2007. In: http://www.el-Nacional.com
/especiales/findeano2001/enero/1011.asp )
Consequently, a series of social conflicts started. The main manifestations

were two strikes (2001, 2002) summoned both by industrial entrepreneurs and
coalitions of labor Unions (FEDECAMARAS and Venezuelan Workers
Confederation, respectively), along with other political and social groups.
Their protest concluded in an opposition march against President Hugo
Chavez’ government on April 11, 2002, which ended after snipers killed 19
people.
Such facts led to the strongest crisis Chavez’ government had to face so
far, forcing him out of office for 40 h. This event, as the previous ones, was
marked by the two polarized views that have dominated this conflict. Social
discord achieved a new peak at the end of 2002, when the opposition
movements convoked a second indefinite strike that had a strong effect over
the country’s oil production. The president’s response was the massive
dismissal of all of the oil national enterprise’s (PDVSA) workers. In 2003 the
opposition began demanding a recalling referendum, a constitutional right.
This was made by way of signatures for the demand, providing all
identification data of the signers. Such data were taken by the chavist 11
deputy L. Tascón. The so-called “Tascón List” has been used since 2004 as an
instrument of exclusion, since it is used as criterion to define the political
tendency of the citizens, and decide about their acceptation or rejection for
public office. It is also used to allocate funds and aids, as well as any other
procedures in which the national government has any saying (Goncalves &
Gutierrez, 2005). To date there has not been anything that could stop the
1
Designation given to the followers and the militants of the official party supporting HC.
4 Alejandra Sapene
discriminatory process generated by the “Tascón List” and a later one: the
“Maisanta List,” of the same type, produced in 2005.
The political polarization process in Venezuela is expressed by the
division of the population into two poles: Chavistas or “officialists” and
opposition or escualidos (scraggy, emaciated, in Spanish). Systematic
confrontations have occurred between both groups as a product of the rejection
that both feel for one another. Based on this context I decided to do this
research.
POLARIZATION
The verb to polarize alludes to the action of concentrating attention or
intention on something – an idea, a person, or an object. Polarization leads to
the fixation of attention on one direction, loosing sight of the diversity that can
exist in the context (Montero, 2002). By pulling toward the extremes,
polarization simplifies reality in order to achieve predetermined ends in social
circles. Thus, polarization reduces and impoverishes social complexity by
decreasing options, since it excludes any other possibility that is different from
the identifying pole. Polarization includes the phenomena of exclusion,
segregation, estigmatization, and sectarianism.
Martín-Baró (1990a) pointed out that intolerance to accept and understand

other ideological positions different from one’s own opinions takes place in
polarization. Difference is experienced as a menace that has to be eliminated,
denied, or avoided in a private and collective context. In this sense, pressure is
generated, not only on the citizens, but also on the diverse social institutions so
they would align themselves with one pole or the other. This alienated vision
of reality takes over social spaces, forcing people to construct a version of
reality based on a unique view that defines their values, believes, attitudes,
affections, among other psychological processes.
Social polarization acts upon the collective world of the social actors
exerting an important influence on their actions and on decision making at an
individual and collective level. It is, furthermore, a splitting strategy that can
be used effectively when certain political leaders exercise their power. When
this occurs we refer to political polarization, alluding to politicians’ tendency
to induce phenomena and political situations, excluding any option different to
the one they are promoting (Montero, 2002).
Political polarization has been broadly employed by authoritarian regimes,
with the determination to suppress any opinion that would differ from the
leaders’. This process of attributing all those negative and dangerous aspects to
the “other” progressively legitimates the employment of explicit and implicit
violence destined to eradicate the “other,” maintaining a social order only
convenient for the dominating pole (Lozada, 2004).
In polarized situations, the person leading the political process makes use
of a speech to promote society’s political polarization and constructs an
ideology that unites his/her followers. This system of “unique” ideas seeks to
have people who sympathize with the regime act, think, and feel in
consonance with the leader’s ideology. This guarantees the uniformity of
thought as well as the irreproachable character of the “leader’s commands.”
Therefore, a person who wishes to be part of this social group has to submit in
an unreflective way to the ideas that reign in the leader. Hence, any person
who defers from the dominating group’s beliefs will be labeled as “enemy.” In
the process of polarization, the relation with the “other” is marked with the
necessity of permanently demonstrating the power and the supremacy one
exerts. This is a form of defense from the danger and the threat that the other
represents. Therefore, pugnacity is a characteristic that is usually present in
polarization. Confrontation and conflict are always latent and they tend to be
necessary, since they enhance solidarity and cohesion of each and every group.
CONSEQUENCES ON MENTAL HEALTH

The concept of mental health should be understood as a global state where
the person is influenced permanently by the social relationships. It is pertinent
to highlight this point, since political polarization can substantially affect the
person’s global health state, because it goes against the capacity of the person
to establish positive relationships and encounters with the others, thereby
translating its influence into physical and psychological disorders.
Sawaia (1998) defines health as the capacity that the body and mind have
to be in movement, affecting each other through good encounters. She
enumerates a series of conditions essential for health. Among them is the
capacity to reflect upon oneself; and the ability to feel, identify, and
understand one’s own emotions as well as those of the others. That is
considered an essential condition to establish positive relationships with
others. Sawaia also introduces a political element to her definition, by
claiming that in order for a person to be healthy he/she needs to efficiently
communicate with others, as well as to have “personal democracy.” This refers
to the capacity of making decisions and taking responsibility for them, as well
6 Alejandra Sapene
as respecting the others for what they are, and letting them have their own
space for self-expression. For Sawaia, health is the possibility to have hope
and convert that hope into action.
Through the concept of health, specifically defined in this way, it is
possible to introduce elements such as individual responsibility for one’s
health and also the state’s role regarding public health. As Sawaia (1998) says:
“Health is the indicator of the (non)commitment with human suffering on
behalf of the government, the masses and the individual.” (p. 56)
Given that in polarization repression and abuse of power take place, it is
important to introduce the political actors’ (government, political parties, and
such) responsibility regarding the population’s health quality. The feeling of
exclusion that is enacted during polarization generates emotional reactions in
people, which affect their lives. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce the term
“ethical–political suffering,” which is defined as the way the individual is
treated and treats other people in social relations (Sawaia, 1998). Martín-Baró
(1990a) emphasized the importance of not labeling as pathological the effects
caused by the chronic social circumstances. Historic, cultural, and political
realities are displaced as well as the experience of political violence. In this
sense, Martín-Baró alluded to a “psychosocial trauma” when referring to those
experiences that affect individuals, and above all, the population as a
collective. He also claimed that when a person undergoes a pathological
diagnosis without executing a psychosocial analysis of the phenomenon, the

collectivity and the individual tend to be victimized, and “theoretical” violence
is exerted upon them.
CONSEQUENCES FOR CHILDREN

Ethical and Political Dilemmas
The consequences of polarization and political violence affect children as

well as adults. However, growing up in an environment where a unique mode
of thinking is promoted as the right way to think, and where total identification
with one group is demanded, can generate deep changes that affect cognitive,
moral, and socioemotional development. Researchers in Chile (Lira, 1991) and
El Salvador (Martín- Baró, 1990a ; Punamäki, 1990) studied the consequences
that children have to face when living in situations of war or political
repression, discovering that in such circumstances people are encouraged, by
those in power, to adopt positions of clear and absolute identification with one
of the groups in conflict. Thus, they try to project themselves from some of the
repressive actions that the government or the oppressive group could exert
against them.
Martín-Baró (1990b) stated that children growing up in the context of war
in El Salvador had to face existential dilemmas that would not be considered
“normal” or expected for their age if they had lived in a different situation.
Political conceptions affected their lives by influencing their daily decisions,
such as their election of friends, topics of conversation, interests, among other
aspects. This submitted them to an environment of continuous tension that
affected their way of living. Furthermore, he affirmed that children who live in
a war situation have to face three basic existential dilemmas: Action-flight,
identity-alienation, and polarization-rupture. Moreover, he explained that there
are two forms in which children can get involved in a war: by taking part of it
or by being its victims. In El Salvador it was common that children ended up
joining the armed forces as child soldiers. There they were instructed to define
the people from the opposite side as “the enemy” that had to be attacked. They
were reared within a polarized vision of the “other” and learned that violence
was the medium to confront it. Risking their lives in the attempt to eradicate
the “other” was considered one of the greatest ideals of heroism.
The Action-Flight Dilemma
In situations of political polarization, victimized children are invaded by

fear and horror, experiencing impotence and deprivation in an environment
where violence does not represent power, but rather destruction. For them,
everything related to the military represented a constant threat, since it was a
symbol of death and a social rejection of their presence in the world. In this
situation the victimized child has no other recourse but fleeing from violence.
Martín-Baró (1990b) describes an escape of a psychical nature, when referring
to the children who had a more privileged economic position, and who could
grow up surrounded by walls that could isolate them from the reality of war
that devastated El Salvador. Although this author did not consider this fact in
itself negative, he thought that the way these children received information
was unconstructive, since usually their significant adults mediated the
information by transmitting the facts through a filter. This filter was regularly
slanted by polarization, repressed anxiety, outspoken hatred, and
discriminatory kindness that hindered a personal vision that could actually be
understood by children.
8 Alejandra Sapene
Another dilemma that children encounter is the one produced between

identity-alienation, which appears when they have to confront their primary
socialization processes in a context essentially determined by violence,
political stigmatization, dehumanized social relationships and institutionalized
lies, among other aspects. These children’s identities begin to form themselves
in a context of generalized violence, where they find themselves forced to
choose between a socially stigmatized identity and an imposed one, the latter
leading them to quit their personal democracy by unreflectively accepting
what it is supposed to be correct.
Lira (1991) considers that fear does not only occur because of the dread to
become the victim of an attack, but also occur due to the anxiety of being
labeled as an enemy by the opposite social sector, since this would produce a
situation of constant suspicion. The “other,” far from being seen as someone
who could help growth and development, is perceived as a potential danger.
This idea becomes clear to those people who have to live in a political
environment where the prevailing power considers them as enemies or as
probable supporters of the enemy. In an environment where politics invade
daily lives, people reject any sort of political opinion or expression as a way to
protect themselves of any impact that the stigmatization of their ideas might
have. People desire to have a political identity, however, the consequences that
this could have on their daily relationships are so harmful that they prefer to
abandon it. This generates a feeling of lack of authenticity toward themselves

and of guilt toward their abandoned friends.
Subjectively, the renounce or abandonment of a political identity
considered wanted, but socially stigmatized, creates a feeling of lack of
authenticity toward oneself and guilt toward the abandoned friends; but, in
case of assuming this wanted identity it is necessary to take the objective risk
of repression and subjective fear, such as a feeling of guilt toward one’s own
family, endangered because of this personal political opinion (Martín-Baró,
1990b, p. 244).
Such a situation presents the child with life options that surpass his/her
personal resources as well as the regular challenges for his/her development.
The natural dynamic in contexts of repression and war cause a negative impact
on children’s mental health. Their situation is complex, since assuming a
position that contradicts the imposed social system generates objective and
subjective costs that can lead them to give up their political identity.
The polarization-rupture dilemma is related to the previous one. The
confronting groups make clear efforts to win the “unconditional” sympathy of
the uncompromised population. Pressure is generated to support a group in an
unconditional way, “absolutely” rejecting the other. This stimulates children to

structure their mind in dichotomized terms, allowing limited tolerance for
ambiguity, as well as a type of convergent and unique thought, which prevents
the creative capacity and the possibility to see reality from diverse points of
view (Martín-Baró, 1990b).
This restriction of thought inhibits the possibility to use words as a
medium to understand and symbolize reality. Words allow generating
possibilities for action and forms of conflict resolution that can be mediated
through verbal resources, which promote the use of nonviolent strategies to
solve problems. Regarding the process of emotional over-involvement and
restriction of the cognitive horizon, the use of words as a channel of
expression is restricted and invaded by the prevailing speech, which
oversimplifies the vision of the world. This can lead to the use of violent
actions as a response to the “possible” threat that the “other” represents, or
occasionally, can also lead to the somatization or development of
psychological disorders as a result of the incapacity to deal with tension
(Martín-Baró, 1990b).
EMOTIONAL REACTIONS OF CHILDREN

Children under situations of repression or war which are marked by

political polarization, tend to present responses of fear, anxiety, and
aggression. Usually, aggression occurs as a response to experimented fear or
frustration. Although, when the object of aggression is considered too
powerful, fear dominates the emotions and the behavior.
Regarding aggression, it is important to understand how the naturalization
of violence in contexts of political polarization not only supports it but
also promotes it. A pacific development is usually stimulated when the
child grows up in a context allowing him/her to control his/her impulses.
During war and conflictive situations the child grows familiarized
with destruction, violence, and hostility, which are accepted by adults. As
long as cruelty, violence, and threats appear in the environment, it
will be difficult for the child to develop the ability to self-control his/her own
feelings of anger. Violence is naturalized in such a way that the necessary
guilt is not developed in order for the child to feel the need to repair the
aggression, once it is exerted. Due to the pressure generated by conflict,
the child can go back to previous stages of his/her development, where
aggression is manifested in a disproportionate way in comparison to what
10 Alejandra Sapene
it is expected for children in their age (Freud & Burlingham, 1943, quoted by
Punamäki, 1990)
In a context of political conflict, with polarization, and especially in war,
it is difficult to find the positive effects that extreme situations like these can
generate.
Nevertheless, the concept of resilience as tolerance of pain and pressure,
and the ability that some people have to come out stronger from traumatic
situations that would surpass their personal resources (Barudy & Dantagnan,
2005; Cyrulnik, 2002) can explain how a traumatic situation can be coped
with. Punamäki (1990) points out that certain victims of war situations tend to
develop a major inner control, politically committing to a cause, as well as
having bigger expressions of altruistic behavior and expressing solidarity to
others, which are not stimulated values of the dominating system in times of
peace.
IMPACT OF POLITICAL POLARIZATION

ON PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
The situation described at the beginning of this chapter illustrates the

influence that the sociopolitical situation has had on my work as a
psychologist. Since 2001, I have been attending as many events as possible

about political polarization. In most psychotherapeutic or psychoeducational
interventions I have carried out, the children have made allusions to the
political situation, even if sometimes it was unrelated to the activity they were
doing at that moment. The frequency or intensity of such interventions
depended on the historical moment in which we have been living. For this
reason, subjects related to the “chavistas” or to the “escualidos” (designated
name given to the opposition sector) have been very present in my daily work.
But I have also been able to observe that the more the time passes the
more the subject has become a taboo, not only for children, but also for me. In
recent opportunities, when someone mentions Venezuelan politics, the
children tend to inhibit their opinions. The difference in political perspectives
has caused a large fracture in society. When a person believes in a political
idea different from that of another group in a polarized society, he/she tends to
be an object of exclusion and repeated aggressions caused by the “enemy.”
The topic of polarization has limited the possibility for dialog and coexistence
between Venezuelans, and in a way it authorizes the use of disqualifiers when
referring to the people from the opposite side. For this reason, the children
tend to evade the subject in order to avoid any conflict, and achieve the
activities’ objectives.
Political polarization appears in my work through multiple forms. It
becomes more difficult to elude everyday. As a subject of differentiation it is
manifested through questions such as: “Are you “chavista”? “escuálida”? (10-
year old boy, Psychotherapeutic section), or comments such as: “In my family
my dad doesn’t talk to my uncle because he is “chavista” (8-year-old boy from
a cooperative learning group)2, or “If you don’t do what I tell you I’m going to
tell Chavez” (9-year-old boy from the cooperative learning group) or “What
happens is that escualidos want to destroy the chavistas” (9-year-old boy from
a cooperative learning group). Paradoxically, even if it is an avoided subject,
national politics invade my professional life constantly. That has led me to
have deep conversations with my work colleagues about the possible ways of
studying and understanding this phenomenon. We have reached several
conclusions, such as interpreting these expressions as a possible resistance
against our work, or as mistrust or aggression against the bond with the
therapist. Most mportantly, we have acknowledged the relevance of the role
that these children are playing regarding the construction of national reality.
This phenomenon seems to be embraced by people, and is used as a strategy to
obtain benefits, as has also happened in El Salvador and Chile (Lira, 1991;
Martín-Baró, 1990a).
Polarization creates a situation of chronic tension in the population.
Feelings of discomfort are generated, which are a product of the anger felt
against the rival and also the fear and mistrust produced by the anticipation of
possible negative consequences by expressing any political position that
opposes collective expectations. The phenomenon of political polarization
directly affects interpersonal relationships, which represent an essential
component of the individual and collective psychological wellbeing.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESEARCH

The research I conducted was set out to describe emotional and cognitive
reactions in a situation of political polarization. It involved a group of 25
2
This group of cooperative learning is a type of psychoeducational intervention employed by the
Service of School Psychology in the Psychology Unit of the Social Park “Father Manuel
Aguirre, S.J.”
12 Alejandra Sapene
children, between 11 and 12 years old, students of the fifth grade (grammar
school); belonging to social economic levels C and D (clerks, labourers, and
poor, but with work) of the Venezuelan population.
The research design combines elements from explicative methods
(Matalon, 1988), such as creating a quasiexperimental situation that could
reflect the conditions of polarization present in Venezuelan society, with
participatory action research. The researcher created the conditions to
reproduce a polarized situation within an environment (a school room)
externally controlled by aspects such as time, place, and working conditions
regulated by the school norms.
At the same time, participatory action research was introduced through the
procedure of reflection–action–reflection (Freire, 1970) and the participants
being able to introduce their points of view by reflecting upon their life
experiences while changing the initial situation. This research design is what
Montero (2006) has called participatory experimental intervention, which
does not attempt to control what the participants do, but instead tries to
generate a process of problematization that produces changes in
consciousness, by introducing a condition where the children could face a
situation that is a metaphor of something happening in their daily lives.
These activities were guided by ethical norms protecting the psychological
integrity of the children. First, their parents were approached in order to
obtain their written and informed authorization allowing their children

to participate in the experience. Before this took place, those parents
were invited to a meeting where they were informed about what I wanted
to carry out and, about their right to be informed of what would be
happening during the action-research sessions. Suggestions given by
some parents were included. Also there were no judgments or criticism
of political opinions given by the children participants. There were
weekly revisions of session transcriptions, in order to spot any comment
or deed that could be significant or that suggested any type of
political inclination in the researcher’s behavior.
Moreover, I took care to ensure the anonymity of the children participants,
of the teachers’, and of the school. Last, after finishing the intervention, I held
a meeting with the subprincipal, the school counselor, and the teachers of the
fifth grade and sixth grade (this one was going to be the next teacher for those
children). They were informed about the results obtained and given
recommendations derived from them.
I planned a playful situation, in which the group’s polarization was
induced through the dramatization of a children story called Children Don’t
Want War 3 (Battut, 2002). This dramatization was carried out both by the
children and the researchers (an assistant and I). The selection of this book was
based on several reasons; the main one being its plot, since it portrays a
situation of political polarization that leads to a war. This text illustrates in a
clear way the causes and the consequences of polarization, by stressing how
the leaders and the people’s decisions influenced the origin of the conflict. It
also shows how following a leader can be sometimes irrational and illogical,
leading to actions that contradict people’s personal thoughts and feelings.
Moreover, the story uses the absurd element as an instrument that
problematizes and promotes awareness about the use of violence. Furthermore,
it emphasizes the role that children play in a context of polarization and war,
highlighting their feelings, thoughts, and actions in this circumstance, which
causes the participants’ identification with the characters of the story. Finally,
the story has images that clearly represent the process of polarization as well
as its consequences, which is useful and pertinent when trying to understand
the story. The use of images helps to understand the message and at the same
time reduces the possibility that children’s reading capacity could be a variable
interfering in the comprehension of the text. The group of children was
divided into two “kingdoms”: a blue one and a red one (as in the story). The
children could freely choose their group. All the girls and two boys went to the
blue kingdom. The red kingdom had only boys.
But there was a participant who did otherwise. A boy who created his own
kingdom: the yellow kingdom. His capacity to reaffirm himself allowed him to
break from the beginning the polarization and assume a sensible and
independent position in this process. However, his election had an individual
cost, since he became an object of frequent attacks against the difference he
represented. By establishing that difference he became a target for
disqualifications related to his weakness, given that he was alone in his
kingdom. His kingdom was considered “poor.”
Based on this situation a series of activities where made that helped
understand and think about the cognitive and emotional reactions caused by
political polarization (see Table 1). The children spontaneously established
connections between the activities and Venezuela’s present sociopolitical
situation.
3
The plot is about how two kings, who used to be friends, start a war because each one makes
fun of the other, when a passing bird drops excrement on his nose. Despite their friendship
they start a war, which causes mutual damage to their countries and their people, dragging
them into an absurd fight.
14 Alejandra Sapene
Table 1. Activities during experimental situation.
1st session Objectives Activity

-Encourage the knowledge of 1) Doing “Presentation card activity”
personal characteristics of the Discussion with the children.
members of the group. 2) Creating norms with the participants.
-Construct a series of rules that
could favor the coexistence in the
group.
2nd session -Introduce the story Children 1) Reading the first part of the story
Don’t Want War (Battut, 2001) Children Don’t Want War (Battut, 2001).
-Encourage a sensitive approach 2) Discussion of the story.
towards war and polarization 3) Selection of the colors of the kingdoms
situations. to which the children wish to be part of.
3rd session -Lead the children to think about 1) Draw the elements related to the
the characteristics of the kingdom kingdom to which they belong (food,
to which they are part of. weapons, cars, houses, families, etc). To
do so they could only use the color they
chose for their kingdom.
2) Each group has to gather all drawings
on a bond paper, in order to give a sense
of unity to the characteristics of their
kingdom.
4th session -Make the participants think 1) Each group has to expose its opinion
about the perceptions that each about the characteristics of the opposite
group has of the other. group.
-Contrast the impressions the 2) Each group has to show to the opposite
children have of the opposite group the drawings they made in the 3rd
group with the characteristics it Session, which represent the
has in reality. characteristics of their kingdom.
5th session - Encourage the children to think 1) Written activity about Children Don’t
about the disadvantages of war Want War
-Let the participants identify the 2) Reading the last part of the story.
feelings that a situation of war
yields in them.
-Allow the participants to
generate solutions that help solve
the conflict.
6th session -Let the participants establish 1) Reflections about possible connections
connection between the situation that the children establish between the
of war created on class and their war situation generated in class and their
daily life. daily life.
- Motivate children to relate the 2) Motivate the children to establish
polarization generated by war (in possible connections between a series of
the story) to polarization in photographs projected on a wall and the
Venezuela. war situation lived in class. The
photographs have images related to
polarization situations in Venezuela
7th session -Encourage the children to do an 1) The children have to fill out a survey
evaluation of the activity. that allows evaluating the actitivity.
-Motivate the children to 2) Construction of the Peace Tree:
construct a symbol of what peace The children have to write on a piece of
means to them. paper a word that explains what they
should do in order to avoid war. These
little pieces of paper will be put on the
branches of a tree that is draw on the wall.
The pieces of paper represent the leaves
of the tree.
3) Snaks.
ETHICAL PRINCIPLES OF THE INVESTIGATION

In this investigation ethical aspects were basic. They were the following:
As this kind of activities may have an indoctrination effect on children, I made
sure there was no such effect. For this, various precautions were taken. One of
them was to discuss and clarify my political position as well as that of my co-
worker’s (assistant) before initiating the investigation. This helped diminish
the probability of introducing elements that could favor any pole of society in
our interventions.
A second aspect was the recording and transcription of the work sessions,
that were discussed and revised by an external supervisor (Maritza Montero)

and me. This allowed us to follow the interventions and identify on time some
elements that could have an influence or even generate negative aspects for the
children. Also, we respected every child’s opinion regarding social and
political events. They had the right, not only to have a different opinion, but
also to abstain or withdraw from the intervention if they wanted to. The goal
was to promote voluntary participation, trying that our function facilitated,
guided and assisted the group’s process, making sure never to predispose a
speech that was pro or against any political position.
On the other hand, given the characteristics that political polarization has
acquired in Venezuela, there could be some negative consequences of the
opinions expressed by the children, whether these opinions are supportive or
against any political tendency. For this reason, their names were modified to
guarantee the anonymity and confidentiality of the contents expressed during
the intervention. Since the children are under-age, as already said, an informed
consent was required from their responsible adults (parents and guardians,
fifth grade teacher, subprincipal and school counselor), so they could decide
whether they wanted the children to participate or not in this investigation.
16 Alejandra Sapene
Consequently, informative meetings were held, so the adults could base their
decisions on solid and clear information. Also, an authorization format was
generated, so parents could manifest their wish to have their children be part of
the research. Previous to this, a notification letter was sent to the parents,
which explained in detail the nature of this intervention.
In the meetings it was made clear that the significant adults could come to
me at any time and ask with total freedom about what happened during the
sessions. Also, every two weeks a meeting with the fifth grade teacher was
held, to check the group’s behavior in the school context, so we could make an
estimation of the intervention’s influence on children. This was made with the
intention of taking actions in time, in case the children had an unfavorable
reaction. One of the aspects that was taken into account was that there could
be a significative increase of disruptive behavior in the school as well as at
home. This was also discussed with the significant adults.
Main Results of the Research
The process of polarization inside the group started with the introduction
of a discursive element, which led to division, polarization and conflict as the
fundamental base of the game. According to Bar-Tal (1990) a group is a
collectivity of individuals that possess a defined sense of belonging and shared

beliefs, which regulate their behavior. This boys and girls belonged to a group
defined as the 5th grade group at the school they studied in. Each one
possessed certain characteristics and roles inside the group, and part of the
intervention challenge was to initiate a process that allowed a redefinition of
the group based on the story: they were asked to abandon, for one hour, their
identification with their everyday group and assume a new group identity that
corresponded to their belonging to the red or blue kingdom (according to the
story).
Process of Political Polarization
The process of polarization produced by these children bears resemblance

with certain group processes described by some authors (Bion, 1961; Freud,
1948), as well as the process of social polarization described by Lozada (2002
and 2004). However, it was possible to observe the process of polarization in
this group, as well as the process of depolarization, as a manifestation of reject
towards the violence generated by the specular vision of the two groups. I will
now proceed to describe the process of polarization:
This phenomenon was characterized by being dynamic. As shown in
Table 2, the phases did not occur in a linear way, but they rather were in
constant change, like all social phenomena. During the intervention, certain
events occurred that belonged to the former stages, and they affected later
stages of the process. It was also observed that the interpretation and acting
during each stage was influenced by the gender of the participants; which
manifested through the way they bonded with their leader, the type of
offensive “weapons” used to attack the adversary, as well as their way of
organizing and working as a team. The different stages of this process of
polarization are described as follows.
Table 2. Process of polarization in this research

Identification with the Leader and Expressions of Dependence

towards Him
In this intervention, according to Bar-Tal (1990), the necessary conditions

for this collectivity to be a group were fulfilled, given that the activity offered
them one of the fundamental elements they needed to be able to identify
themselves as a group: the fact of having some level of coordinate activity.
This activity also helped them share a group of beliefs and define themselves
18 Alejandra Sapene
as members of a group so this way all the children formed two subgroups (plus
another “group” formed by only one dissident boy: the yellow one), that
fought according to a guideline issued by the kings.
This identification with the leaders was followed by expressions that
reflected the dependence towards these new figures that had invited them to
fight a war. This phenomenon bears resemblance to the state of dependence
described by Bion (1961) which is developed in small, unstructured groups,
and it states that the group perceives the leader as omnipotent and omniscient.
The dependence manifested by the group corresponded to very early stages of
development in which the leader is expected to supply the most basic needs of
the citizens, like for example, nourishing. This can be seen in the constant
demand the participants made to give them things to take home: “Boy: And
can we take these handkerchiefs home?” (the hankerchief’s color identified the
kingdom they belonged to).
There were also comments that alluded to the need of following the
leaders so they would give them food and housing. As it was explained before,
in the relationship with the leader emerged contents that seemed to reedit the
group’s individuals narcissistic aspirations of fusion (Kernberg, 1999).
Another aspect that could also be introduced as an explanation for this
attitudes has to do with Venezuela’s social reality. This boys and girls belong
to a social class where the theme of economic resources happens to be an
important content for their families. Generally, this resources are invested on
food and housing. For the people who belong to a mid-low social class,
especially in Caracas, getting a house is becoming a difficult task to achieve
due to the high expenses and the scarcity of it in the city. This situation leads
to people turning to the government and asking for its help, so they can satisfy
this need and solve their problem.
The Other Perceived as a Threat. Negative Attributions towards

the Other
In this stage people start to understand the relationship with the others in a
split or polarized way, which is part of the weakening of the ego functions that
happens in the groups (Kernber, 1999) during situations of conflict and
polarization (Lechner 1986; quoted by Lira, 1991). In this stage, polarization
becomes more evident, increasing the number of violent actions towards the
other, who is perceived as a threatening figure (Lozada, 2004). There seems to
be a fusion of the two stages proposed by Lozada (2004), which consists in
perceiving the other as an enemy and legitimize the use of violence as a

resource for defense.
It is observed, during the process of polarization of the participants, that
the legitimization of violence occurs along the dehumanization of the
adversary (Kelman & Hamilton, 1989), as well of themselves (Martín Baró,
1990; Samayoa; quoted by Martín Baró, 1990). The dehumanization of the
other is defined as the objectification of the adversary, the other becomes a
political objective and their condition as a human being is ignored. In the
game, the ones from the other kingdom cease to be their schoolmates to be
“the blue ones” or “the red ones”. During session 4 took place a discussion
that reveals this process:
J: What do you think of the Red castle?

Mateo: That I like the castle of the red ones because there are a lot of
pretty girls there.
Boys and girls from the blue kingdom: (noise and whistling, applauses).
4
¡Traitor, you’re a traitor, vendepatria !
This fragment illustrates how the contrary group loses all possibility of
deserving any positive consideration from the other group. The fact of
recognizing that some girls from the red group are pretty unleashes an intense
furor in the blue group, which does not tolerate anyone from their group
humanizing their contender. Polarization requires that the other one is blurred,
so they can be object of the negative projections and attacks coming from the
adversary. That is why when Mateo gives the red girls the quality of person, it
generates an unbalance in the group which translates to anguish, anger and
tension.
As a reaction to the group’s angry response, Alberto comes up with a
reflection:
Alberto: I just don’t understand why does Juan have to be upset. If I tell
Mateo to say that the girls from the red team are really pretty and it’s the
same, we are all people. Do they have to be enemies only because some
are blue and some are red? I mean, I can be friends with a red one, and
that doesn’t mean I’m a traitor.
Alberto identifies in a very explicit way the dehumanization Juan makes

of the girls, as a member of the blue team. He tries to remark the need to have
4
Offensive term that implies that the person is capable of “selling his country”, betraying it.
20 Alejandra Sapene
diversity in the group. In his phrase “we’re all people”, he tries to save the
group from its own dehumanization and from the dehumanization of the other.
When dehumanizing the other, one denies the own human condition. That is
why it is considered that the process of dehumanization of the other and the
self are related. When the process of personal dehumanization occurs, there is
a decrease in the capacity of being empathic towards the suffering of others,
and people are less able to think and communicate in assertive ways (Martín-
Baró, 1990). The possibility of both concepts showing two faces of the same
phenomenon that occurs during polarization must be considered.
An aspect that could have also influenced the legitimization of violence
was the normalization that leaders made of violence as a way of solving
conflicts between the groups. Barreto and Borja (2007) argue that the
delegitimization of the adversary is a strategy used with the finality
of legitimizing violence. They state this in a study that pretended to understand
political violence under the light of some psychosocial considerations such
as the psychology of legitimacy, the intergroup conflict and the impact of
the speech in legitimization and delegitimization. The delegitimization
of the adversary is understood as a process of recategorization of a political
action, system, group or person that was previously legitimate or illegitimate.
In the group of participants, as well as it usually occurs in society, the
moral and social values acted as regulators of the use of violence (Barreto and
Borja, 2007). However, the function of norms and values was shadowed
by the introduction of a speech that marked the other as an enemy to be fought.
This combat speech introduced by the co-facilitator and me had its limits,
which stated that violence should be kept symbolic, in the writings or the
drawings, but never in action. The creation of rules that regulated the
children’s behavior (session 1) had the intention of keeping physical
and verbal violence under control. War had to take place only in the children’s
imagination and games.
Despite these previous considerations, it was possible to observe that
when there is a speech approved by the authority that legitimates violence
(Kelman and Hamilton, 2007), such as inviting the children to play war, it
does not matter what other limits are established. Participants connect with the
war situation, limits get blurred and the members of the group end up acting
out the conflict with their partners. The function of limits was to regulate the
use of violence in the classroom, to signal those actions that hurt physically or
verbally. However, children with more predispositions to impulsive behavior
and disrespecting the rules turned out to be more vulnerable to act out the
violence in the group. They served as catalysts of conflict in the classroom.
It is possible that this type of war situations puts the children in a

predominantly schyzo-paranoid position (Klein, 1964) where projections,
persecutory fears, envy and omnipotence rule, and as a consequence, it
translated in clearly aggressive behavior towards their partners.
Their aggression was manifested through the use of certain “weapons”
that allowed them to attack their contender. These weapons were basically
jeers, verbal insults and disqualification. Boys used more frequently jeering
and verbal insults to attack their enemies; besides, they were much more
offensive and crude when compared to the use girls made of the same
weapons. In every insult an emphasis was made in how much they disliked
differences, thus suggesting rejection towards the possible tendency of
different sexual choices, racial differences, different customs, and physical
aspect, among others.
The insults used by the girls tended to be more subtle, although that did
not make them any less hurtful or provocative. A clear example of this is
observed in the comment Luisa makes to a boy from the blue team when asked
about what they ate in the red kingdom (her kingdom):
Luisa: Teacher, I say that they [the red ones] eat healthy and balanced
food, because we, the red ones, don’t fight for food.
J: They eat a healthy and balanced food?
Luisa: Yes, because us girls don’t fight for food, and we don’t eat rats and
all those things they say about us. That’s a lie.
Gabriela: They are famished!.
Likewise, girls used to attack boys by making whispered comments about

them while they pointed at them and then laughed, as a way of provocation.
On the other hand, disqualification consisted in devaluating the other but
without the intention of provoking them; it seemed to be product of the
habitual scission that occurs in the processes of political polarization, in which
the enemy is conferred with negative and devaluated attributes, as a way of
controlling him and reducing the fear he generates. The main disqualification
was the madness of the other team. Historically, madness has been a
stigmatizing condition that marks the individuals and casts them out of the
society. Consequently, Manuel said: “¡Nooooo! Since they’re mad, their brain
has melted down!” and Juan: “Because they’re just like (…) I don’t know,
crazy”.
They also employed betrayal as a way of attacking dissidents inside the
group. As stated by Bion (1961), in small, unstructured groups, members have
little tolerance towards dissidence, and they react to it by forming subgroups.
22 Alejandra Sapene
The children started yelling like this to a boy who took off his blue
handkerchief: “He’s a red one! ¡Traitor!”; and to other one who expressed his
appreciation for the girls from the red team: “Traitor!, Country seller!”. This
phrase turns out to be very eloquent, since it expresses the feeling that
whoever thinks differently than the rest of the group or does not show an
absolute rejection for the adversary is considered to be capable of “selling his
country”, of attacking his own leader and his people, leaving them with no
territory.
Other disqualifications consisted in rejecting others’ behavior claiming
that they were “wasted” or had “lack of taste” when it came to decorating their
castle or dressing. On the other hand, they would use gender stereotypes to
mutually attack each other. Boys claimed that girls were weak only because
they belonged to the feminine gender:
Carlos: Besides, girls could never beat boys.

Rosa: Girls could never beat boys? What do you mean? Explain it to me.
Carlos: Because we are stronger.
And girls disqualified boys for being messy:
Gabriela: I think that the Blue castle is, I don’t know, I don’t know what
it seems like, to me. The Red castle is prettier than theirs because they are
boys and they don’t take care of their stuff, at least girls clean up their
rooms.
It was interesting to observe how they used stereotyping as an insult, and

at the same time they used values that were important for each gender as a way
of disqualifying the other. Another way of disqualifying was through those
things that the contrary group lacked of, or were damaged. For example, in
session 4, Manuel suggested that “In this castle (the Red kingdom castle) they
have nothing. Not even a house”. And then Juan, in the same session, pointed
out that “apparently all the planes from the Red kingdom are rusty”.
Poverty also was an attribute used to disqualify the other, particularly to
disqualify the Yellow kingdom (Ss. 2 L. 276, 278) “this is the kingdom of the
poor (…) For there is only one person”.
Influence of Violence on Psychologists
This situation of polarization not only affected children, but also the
psychologists that facilitated the activity. When the amount of violence among
the participants started increasing in frequency and intensity, the assistant co-
facilitator and I started to feel we were losing control of the group. That is
reflected on some interventions in session 4. Examples of this session are
shown in table 3:
Table 3. Interventions aimed to group control Session 4
“Calm down, calm down, we cannot hear each other if we talk like this” (L. 172);
“Hold on, put your hand down, Juan, I’m over here. Gabrielle”(L.179),
“You guys have to wait until the other is done talking” (L.190 );
“Hold on a minute”;
“Hold on, you’re not letting him finish. Silence” (L. 309-310);
No te estamos preguntando a ti (L. 374);
No nos podemos tratar así (L. 481).
Besides the interventions that were transcripted, there were multiple

signals made by us that were not registered in the recording. Session 4 was
characterized by a significant lack of control over the group. Maybe this was
the reason why there were a lot of interventions made to maintain order, to
limit participation and, sometimes those interventions may have been made in
a tone of anger and desperation. Somehow we tried to transmit the children the
need to listen and recognize the others. Boys and girls acted out a war in which
they fought symbolically, they got polarized and, once the process was
initiated, it was very hard to regulate their attack conducts. As the participants
got more radical, our interventions also were more radical and less open to
hearing the children. When we realized that we were doing this, after checking
out session 4, we used strategies that invited them to reflection, and also
avoided the exacerbation of conflict levels in the group in the following
sessions.
As violence got cruder, the children’s beliefs got more rigid, and that
made them hard to problematize. We started feeling that war had taken over
them, and that there was only room for those statements that confirmed what
they thought. If anyone proposed a different idea, this was strongly attacked or
simply denied, which allowed hopelessness to invade us in a progressive way.
24 Alejandra Sapene
Disqualification of the Unaligned
Aligned makes reference to the person who has taken part of a conflict or
dissidence. Thus, the unaligned in this investigation are those people who
reject to take part of a war conflict and decide not to polarize. This case only
happened with the child who chose to be “the yellow one”, assuming a neutral
and unaligned role in the war that was proposed. Then there were other
children that, when they felt that their group did not tolerate diversity, felt the
need to align with the yellow one or form a kingdom on their own.
Ideal of Absolute Uniformity in the Group
From the first moment, the two polarized subgroups demanded absolute
loyalty towards their respective kingdoms, thus impliying the homogenization
of each one’s personal characteristics. In session 3 this phenomenon can be
easily observed, in the following examples:
A: So, people who belong to the same kingdom, they never fight?
Children: No!!!
Just as stated by Montero (2002), in polarization the idea is to dilute the

self into a sector or pole of collective thought. To be part of one of the poles,
one must renounce to one’s own individual identity, identifying massively
with the group’s ideas. In the example shown above, it is possible to
appreciate the idea of thought uniformity the children aspire to reach.
Everyone gets along just fine because there is no one who dissents. Thus, the
conflict explained by Kernberg (1999) emerges, emphasizing the group’s
needs to annul intragroup conflicts by introducing an external enemy.
However, Bion (1961) states that in small groups’ stage of fight-flight, there is
a moment in which the members do not tolerate intragroup differences and
they start to form subgroups. This phenomenon also happened in the blue
group. There were boys, like Mateo and Alberto, who created a different group
when they started feeling uncomfortable with the original group’s ideas. Also,
parallel leaderships emerged in the group. For example, Juan always catalyzed
the conflict and tension situation in the blue group, and María did likewise in
the red group. Both of them expressed the rudest insults and stirred their group
against the other.
Disqualification of the Yellow One
Jacinto, the Yellow king, turned out to be an “incomprehensible”

phenomenon to the other participants that were polarized. This boy decided
not to give in to group pressure to belong to any predefined group (red or
blue), choosing not to be part of the polarization.
A: Jacinto belongs to the Yellow kingdom.

Juan: But that one is not in the story.
A: It does not appear in the story, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
In this classroom it does exist.
This choice left the polarized children out of place, since their schemes did
not include the possibility of rejecting the option of polarizing. Faced to this
difference, their first reaction was to disqualify him by calling his creation “the
kingdom of the poor (…) for there is only person”. The person who chose to
be different was stigmatized and qualified as weak, lacking of resources. In a
country like Venezuela, where the greatest part of the population lives in
poverty, it is important to remark the stigmatized idea regarding poverty. The
poor is seen by these children as a person who thinks differently, who does not
align and does not adapt to the other, as well as being the one with less power.
The children based their belief regarding to the power in the amount of people
and resources they could count on, therefore denying the other the possibility
of exerting influence despite being only one person.
From this emerged other disqualifications alluding the weakness of the
yellow one, by calling him “yellow chicken (…) the little chicken”. This
comment emphasized the vulnerability and fragility of the chicken, and it
shows the way in which they take from the lone other all the capacity to
exercise power and strength by their infantilizing him. Also in session 4,
Mateo tells him that he “eats roaches”. Like this, the process of projection in
the other their own fears and ghosts is revealed. This helped them preserve
only the bright, idealized side for themselves (Montero, 2002).
Consolidation of the Group’s Sense of Belonging
The process of disqualification and denigration of the other leaded to

consolidation of the sense of belonging to the group. Barreto and Borja (2007)
affirm that in groups where violence is legitimized, beliefs are needed in order
26 Alejandra Sapene
to build rationalizations justifying their actions. The speech used by the group
to refer to themselves usually favored the presentation of their own members
and group (Van Dijk, 2003). In this case, external presentation was full of
positive attributes allowing them to preserve each gorup image:
I think that the Blue castle is, I don’t know what it seems like, to me. The
Red castle it’s prettier than theirs because they are boys and they don’t
take care of their stuff, at least girls clean up their rooms.
Thus, in this research it was observed that in-group victimization was one
of the characteristics most clearly manifested by boys and girls. Each one felt
attacked and damaged by the other, so members of each group felt they had
the “right” to use insults, jeers and disqualification as a form of defense and
attack against the other.
Recognition of Leaders as Heads of the Group
A fundamental element that allows polarization to penetrate in a group is

that the leader has convening power and his speech captivates the collective
(Barreto and Borja, 2007). The group cohesion was based on the leaders’
proposals, who offered them structure and guidance to go on (Morales, Moya,

Rebolloso, Fernández, Huici, Marquez, Páez and Pérez, 1997). In the Red
kingdom, it was easily observed the identification its members had with their
leader:
Enrique: Queen Alejandra, yes, yes, write it down.

A: But you can name her differently. It doesn’t necessarily have to be my
name (Alejandra is the facilitator’s name).
Children: We want her to be named Alejandra.
Even though in the blue kingdom they had more dissidences regarding to
the disposition to recognize the king’s leadership, there were some expressions
determinining the recognition of the king as a leader: “this is the king of the
troops, the one who commands the troops”. However, in the same line of
thought, the boy points out that the king is named “Rocks”, which shows the
children’s resistance to follow the co-facilitator as their leader.
Desire to Align those who are Not Aligned
As the last stage of the process of polarization arose the desire to align the
unaligned as a way of attracting members to their troops and thus improve
their battle force: “Come to the blue side! Come!”. This started showing a
more flexible cognitive position and therefore less polarized. Through this
opening it is possible to show recognition of the other as someone important
for achieving the goals that have been set.
This can be considered as a war weapon that allows to divide the
adversary, but it also shows the group’s permeability to the differences, and
this may offer an opportunity to start the process of depolarization. As a mater
of fact, this process started occurring during half of session number 4, and
from that moment on, depolarization started as a response to the pressure and
anguish that violence had generated in the participants.
Table 4. Group dismembering process
Exclusion of the
most passive
group members
Discontent
Exclusion of group towards own Desire to join a
members according to group different group
their gender
Mistrust towards
people who does
not share group
symbols
PROCESS OF DEPOLARIZATION
The process of depolarization is considered as a continuum inside the
global process of polarization. For the effects of this investigation, I show both
separately to highlight the importance of group dismembering that arises as a
rejection of violence from boys and girls as well.
28 Alejandra Sapene
Exclusion as a Way of Rejecting Diversity
Exclusion is built as a fundamental manifestation of group dismembering.

Group dismembering is understood as the process by which the members of
the group start generating mechanisms in order to regulate diversity inside the
group. Given that absolute uniformity is untenable, the group creates strategies
allowing it to maintain intragroup cognitive and systemic balance. In the
process of political polarization, the fundamental objective consists in
projecting in the enemy every negative aspect with the intention of preserving
a clean, positive image of one’s own group.
Thus, when differences start emerging in the group, it uses exclusion as a
way of guaranteeing group homogeneity. In other words, the possibility of
belonging to their own group is denied to some group members who manifest
some characteristics that diverge from the collective. This exclusion happened
in the group of boys (the blue one), especially with those members that were
considered weak and passive:
A: What happens with these blue ones that are not with their people?
Mateo: They won’t let us.
A: And what do you think of them not letting you in? Share your opinion
with the interviewer here.
Rosa: What do you think?

Mateo: Nothing.
Rosa: Why don’t you join your group, then?
Mateo: I was going to join them, but they pushed me away and grabbed
me.
Mateo was a boy that was permanently excluded from group dynamics
because he had little self reassuring capacity, and had a great need of approval
from the authority, which lead him to denounce some of his partner’s
transgressions to win the teacher’s affection. Maybe this is why the group of
boys permanently rejected him and took him out of their kingdom’s “ranks”.
However, it is also true that Mateo had a hard time finding the right skills to
make a successful adaptation to the group. His characteristics made the group
deny him the possibility to be part of it.
On the other hand, the girls considered at some point that gender could
make the difference inside their group. Thus, on session 4, they eliminated
from their speech, unwillingly, the boys that belonged to the group, for
considering them messy and destructive:
J: Wait a minute. Hold on, listen. Gabriela said that because you were
girls, you took better care of things, but in the Red Kingdom there are
also boys.
Luisa: Well, but most of us are girls.
Once the process of exclusion and mistrust from the members of the
red and blue groups occurred, it unraveled a sequence of discontents and
manifestations of violence rejection that ended up in the need of conciliation
and the search of peace. Boys and girls started asking to “build up new
kingdoms”, as well as “ to leave that group”. Discontent with one’s own group
seems to induce reflection about the need of having spaces to express diversity
of thought and action. Just as Barreto and Borja (2007) state about the capacity
to resist the speech that promotes the legitimization of violence that some
members of society have, despite the highly ideologizing power these
speeches could have, people keep having the capacity of discerning, so they
can choose to keep with the polarization or move out of it.
It is possible that in this investigation, these results may have occurred
faster than in real life. Martín-Baró (1990) stated that in situations where
political polarization happens in environments defined by clear signs of threat
to the physical integrity, fear usually paralyzes or reverts the population’s
attempts to depolarize. However, it is positive that in these children’s group
dynamic, this process of dismembering due to the uneasiness generated by the

polarized violence. It was a sign of rejecting polarization.
CONCLUSIONS
One of the main accomplishments was to actually having been able to do
this research and action despite the expressed fear of the significant adults that
surrounded the children participants and, their doubts about the viability of the
study. We can conclude that when one acts in a responsible, committed, and
reflexive manner it is possible to overcome fear and turn it into an opportunity
to achieve transformation and change. The adults’ fear helped me to give the
sessions a new meaning, and find more careful ways to achieve the research
objectives. Participatory action research was a basic instrument of work. The
systematic problematization of naturalized elements of reality contributed to
the work’s flow, helping to adjust it to the characteristics of the institution, of
the participants, and of the meaningful adults.
30 Alejandra Sapene
I believe that referring to the topic of political polarization from a

secondary prevention viewpoint is the most effective way of dealing with this
issue. In Venezuela there have been some interventions related to this subject,
but from a perspective of attention in crisis or tertiary attention. I consider
peace should be constructed in spaces of daily coexistence. Such spaces offer
the opportunity to think and observe the daily benefits produced by
maintaining positive relationships with others, and they also offer resources to
face possible future crises or the “hardening” of political dynamics.
I also observed important indicators related to the children’s awareness.
The participants succeeded in detaching themselves from the emotional side
that the conflict awakened and they managed to offer solutions based on
respect and consideration toward the “other.” Furthermore, they reacted
against authoritarianism by rejecting absolute uniformity. They were also
capable of proposing alternatives that would promote tolerance of individual
differences in the classroom.
The children did reiterate attempts to integrate as a group and break the
polarization.In spite of the apparent conventionality of the solutions they
proposed to avoid war, expected for their age, in many interventions they were
able to transcend the schemes and criticize the authority’s orders.
A series of reflective and analytic resources were mobilized, allowing
them to go deeper in the contents and create conclusions that affected
positively their psychological wellbeing. Despite having interpersonal

problems (as informed by some teachers), these children where able to follow
norms and instructions, and also had the flexibility to respect some new
authority figures (myself and my assistant). Some of them voiced personal
reflections in a play situation in the classroom. One of the children wrote: “I
should be cooler instead of getting angry at everything people tell me.”
This child was able to rethink about his own personal characteristics and
how they influence the promotion of peace in the classroom. Moreover,
another child transferred the acquired knowledge to another daily situation,
when during an activity he reminded one of his classmates about the
importance of dialog and listening, which he learned during the playing
research activity.
The strategy used helped the participants to experiment in an affective
way the situation of war and polarization. This seems to have influenced the
expressed rejection against violence, which was a product of the discomfort
that they felt. The problematized and catalytic interventions favored
awareness.
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Chapter 2
CHILDREN’S PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS

AND NEEDS IN NORTHERN UGANDA’S
CONFLICT ZONE: AN ASSESSMENT
OF STAKEHOLDERS’ CONFLICTING
ENGAGEMENTS
Grace Akello1, Annemiek Richters2, Ria Reis3

and Charles B. Rwabukwali4

1
Gulu University, Faculty of Medicine. Gulu, Uganda.
2
Department of Public Health and Primary Care,
Section Medical Anthropology, Leiden University Medical Center
Leiden, The Netherlands
3
Universiteit van Amsterdam, Medical Anthropology Unit,
Achterburgwal 185, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
4
Makerere University, Faculty of Social Sciences. Kampala, Uganda
ABSTRACT
During the prolonged armed conflict in Northern Uganda, the state
through its Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) and non-
governmental organisations (NGOs) were based in the conflict zone to
protect and promote psychosocial well-being of the civilians.
Nevertheless people in this region continued to be exposed to
dangers of wartime and psychosocial suffering. This chapter seeks to
34 Grace Akello, Annemiek Richters, Ria Reis et al.
assess the conflicting roles played by the state and NGOs, also called
humanitarian agencies in the prevention and alleviation of psychological
distress. While we address this issue, children’s perspectives about
suffering, distress, survival and lack of appropriate care will constitute
our main empirical evidence. The field data provided in this chapter are
based on one year of ethnographic fieldwork in Gulu district in 2004-
2005. The doctoral research focused on experiences of displaced children
aged 8-16 years, including ex-combatants, who had fled to a relatively
safer Gulu municipality from the districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader.
Additional informants included teachers, camp leaders, NGO
coordinators, nurses, counselors, and medical doctors. The field data are
complemented by data derived from literature review.
Keywords: Armed conflict, State and NGO conflicting roles, psychosocial

suffering and children
1. INTRODUCTION
The armed conflict in Northern Uganda involving the Lord’s Resistance
Army (LRA) and the state started in 1986 and had been going on for more
than two decades at the time of this study. This prolonged war had caused
tremendous suffering among the civilian population living in the conflict zone.
Children were particularly affected, as this chapter will demonstrate. For
clarity, in a situation of armed conflict, there are social, psychological and
material needs and alleviating psychosocial suffering implies addressing these
needs simultaneously. We will present and discuss children’s psychosocial
suffering and survival strategies against the background of the conflicting roles
played by the State and its army and the numerous humanitarian non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the conflict zone. We will
assess the success of these institutions and organizations in alleviating the
plight of children based on wartime children’s own perspectives on their
suffering and their needs in terms of survival and care, complemented by
findings derived from literature study. The empirical data on which we will
anchor our assessment are a selection of fieldwork data collected in the context
of PhD research done by the first author on displaced children’s illness
experiences and quest for therapy in Northern Uganda. The fieldwork part of
this research was conducted in Gulu municipality, Northern Uganda, over a
one-year period, between July 2004 and December 2005. The other three
authors were involved in the research in supervisory roles, from the stage of
Children’s Psychological Distress and Needs ... 35
proposal development, to the analyzing and writing-up stage. All the three
supervisors visited the first author in the field. In addition, the last author has
been involved in other field research in the area under consideration.
This chapter is organised as follows. We will give background
information about the civil war with a focus on various stakeholders’
engagements. Children’s narratives about their experiences of suffering during
the armed conflict are then provided and based on their own identified needs
and priorities, we will propose effective ways in which these needs can be met.
2. THE HISTORY OF THE WAR IN NORTHERN UGANDA

The Lord’s Resistance Army, one of the two main warring parties, is
believed to have evolved from remnants of the then ruling military junta,
which was ousted by President Museveni’s regime in the early 1980s. The
defeated army retreated to the Northern Uganda districts of Gulu, Kitgum and
Pader, which are occupied by the Acholi ethnic group. In an attempt to regain
control of the state, the defeated state army reorganized and launched a new
war under the umbrella name of the Uganda People’s Democratic Army
(UPDA). The UPDA was partially crushed militarily and some of its fighters
were absorbed into the national army, by then called National Resistance
Army (NRA). Remnants of the UPDA later reorganized under a young woman
- Alice Auma, also called Lakwena. Under her leadership, what was left of the
UPDA transformed into an ideological movement that blended Christianity
and Acholi traditions into what was called the Holy Spirit Movement (HSM).
The HSM was however defeated by the National Resistance Army (NRA) in
Busoga sub-region, about 30 km East of the capital Kampala. Alice Lakwena
fled to Kenya where she lived in Ifo refugee camp until her death in January
2007. However, her cousin1, Joseph Kony, put in place another rebellious
movement code-named the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA hereafter). In its
early stages, the LRA rebel group found wide support among members of the
Acholi ethnic group, who at that time felt their interests were insufficiently
represented at national level. It is believed that most of the LRA’s weapons
1
Conflicting reports exist concerning filial relationship between Lakwena and Kony. Although
people interviewed in Gulu indicated that they are cousins, others asserted that Kony is a
nephew to Lakwena. Mourners at Lakwena’s funeral interviewed about this issue only
suggested distant filial relations with Kony.
and training its warriors were provided by Sudan2 - a neighbouring state to the
North. During this rebellion, the LRA assumed different names and committed
various atrocities for over two decades with impunity.
At the start of the conflict, the state underestimated the adversary’s
capacity. In 19913, the state launched a military offensive against the LRA
fighters, but retreated shortly afterwards, citing difficulty in fighting a less
organized group (HURIFO 2002). The LRA subsequently made civilians its
soft targets by abducting children, maiming and mutilating civilians,
destroying properties and homesteads and committing other horrendous
crimes. During all this time, the people in Northern Uganda were still living in
their communities.
In the 1995 Constitution the Ugandan Government army name was
changed from National Resistance Army (NRA) to Uganda People’s Defence
Force (UPDF). While this army was supposed to protect civilians from attacks
by the LRA and promote their well-being, oftentimes the contrary happened as
will be shown in subsequent Sections. We now turn to examine these
conflicting roles.
3. CONFLICTING ROLES PLAYED BY THE STATE

IN ITS ATTEMPTS TO PROTECT PEOPLE AND PACIFY
NORTHERN UGANDA
During the conflict, the state was under pressure to protect people in
wartime and end the armed rebellion. In 1994 the state drafted a plan to settle
people in ‘protected villages’ or displaced persons’ camps to enable the NRA
to pursue the LRA without hindrance. This plan was officially implemented in
1996. Available information suggests that although the decision to create
camps was officially announced by President Yoweri Museveni on September
27, 1996 to members of Parliament, in some camps (including Pabbo, Ajulu,
Awach and Cwero), as early as August 1994, the NRA were already attacking
2
The Uganda government was bitter over a $ 20.000 gift the Sudan People’s Liberation
Movement/Army recently gave Lord’s Resistance Army chief Joseph Kony as a good will
gesture. Uganda fears Kony could use the money to re-arm, plan and launch more atrocities
against Uganda (Matsiko 2006).
3
In a press conference on May/4/2006, President Museveni gave conflicting facts including that
as early as in August 1986 the UPDF – then called National Resistance Army (NRA) -
already launched their attack at Bibia on the LRA. (See “The truth about LRA” in The
Sunday Vision, May, 7/2006: Museveni special: 5).
villages and ordering people to move to the trading centres. People resisted
leaving their villages in various ways since they were not certain of the state’s
intentions. Subsequently, the UPDF employed militaristic ways to sporadically
‘scare’ Acholi people out of their villages and livelihoods. In the process, vast
properties, lives and social networks were damaged and gross violations of
human rights were the order of the day. A UN report (2004: 24) in which it is
argued that “in contravention of international conventions and national laws,
primarily the Child statute of 1996, children continue to be forced into rebel
ranks with girls being used as sex slaves and ‘wives’. Children commute
nightly everyday from camps, a practice which has exposed them to various
forms of violence”. One key informant in our research elaborated as follows:
I have known the suffering caused to people since this war started in
1986. As early as 1994, the NRA maltreated the people to unimaginable
levels. There were sporadic bombings of the villages, killings and mutilations
of people who showed any signs of resistance. People were literally smoked
out of their huts. Hungry people herded in camps who traced their homes to
look for food found their food stores, huts and gardens destroyed. The NRA
was waiting for them there to attack and send them back to the camps. People
went through numerous traumatizing experiences so that it will be difficult to
send them back to their places of origin, that is their own villages.
In an interview with a camp leader, he disclosed how the UPDF gave

people in one village a seven-day ultimatum and three days for another village
to move to ‘protected camps’, threatening to treat those who resisted as rebels.
According to Rodriguez, a Catholic missionary living in Northern Uganda at
the time of this study, “in a good number of cases, soldiers just stormed
villages - often at dawn - without any previous warning, telling people to move
immediately, even beating them” (2006b: 34). In one of the rare occasions
where Retired General Salim Saleh gave explanations about ‘protected
villages’, he indicated that the army had acted alone in creating the camps
because “it suspected bureaucracy and politicking over the issue” (The
Monitor, October 26, 1997). The UPDF army officers frequently told people
that staying in the camps would be a temporary arrangement that would last
only a few months. The tension, which people experienced, was unbearable.
We were beaten by government troops, who accused us of being rebel

collaborators and told us to go to the trading centre. On the other hand, rebels
would also come and threaten to kill us unless we moved deeper inside the
bush. (a camp leader in interviews with the first author)
In an assessment of how the 24 camps in Gulu were created in 2001,

people in places like Pabbo, Opit, Anaka, Cwero, and Unyama narrated to
Rodriguez (2006b: 34) how they had their villages shelled and even
bombarded by helicopters. The rural communities were brutally uprooted from
their homes and lands by the government, in an operation marked by
systematic bombing of villages, and the burning of homes, grain stores and
crops (see Olara 2006). The state army consistently rejected these allegations
and stated that it only shelled rural areas where it suspected the LRA to be
present.
A report by UNICEF (2005) suggested that over 50% of women in Pabbo
camp had been exposed to forms of gender-based violence, the most common
form having been rape. The state army was identified as the main perpetrator.
In April 2006, the state owned newspaper The New Vision reported the
following:
The High Court in Arua has directed the Government to pay 82 million
shillings to two displaced women who were raped by UPDF soldiers in Awer
displaced persons camp in Gulu district in 2004. One of the victims was
infected with HIV and another got pregnant. The two Acholi girls told the
Court that two armed soldiers deployed to guard the camp waylaid them
along a bushy path and raped them. The soldiers had threatened to shoot the
victims had they not succumbed to their demands. The girl who conceived
was paid thirty-two millions, while the one infected with HIV would get fifty
millions. However, the official of Gulu based Human Rights Focus criticized
the awards as paltry compared to the gravity of the case and its impact on the
victims (Mafabi 2006).
Figures suggest that up to 2 million people in Eastern, Northern and North

Eastern Uganda districts of Kitgum, Gulu, Pader, Apac, Lira, Soroti and
Katakwi have subsequently been displaced (UN 20044, UNICEF 2003, UN
OCHA 2006). It is however, the Acholi sub-region comprised of Gulu, Kitgum
and Pader districts, which have born the greatest brunt of this armed conflict.
WFP (2003) estimates that 800,000 persons, that is approximately 90% of the
Acholi have been internally displaced due to armed conflict in the districts of
4
UN systems in Uganda (2004: 34) report suggests that 25,000 of whom are children forced to
enroll as soldiers and girls as sex slaves. By observation, at World Vision Centre for
Formerly Abducted Children, there were also former female ex-combatants – a
phenomenon rarely discussed since girls are viewed within their gender roles as wives and
caregivers.
Gulu, Kitgum and Pader in Northern Uganda where they live in camps. The
majority of those living in camps were women and children.
Since the process of settling people in camps was haphazardly done, there
were no advance plans for the hundreds of thousands of the now displaced
persons in terms of putting in place healthcare facilities, sanitation, food and
proper shelter. The appalling living conditions in the camps and villages led to
epidemics of infectious diseases and STDs (Rwabukwali et al. 2000, Weiss
2000) as well as a high prevalence of mental health problems (Olara 2006).
Some of the examples of infectious disease epidemics in 2000-20065,
included, ebola, scabies and cholera (District Directorate of Health Services-
Gulu 2006). From September to December 2005, alone, over one thousand
cases of cholera were recorded in Pabbo camp (DDHS-Gulu report, 2006).
Although epidemiological data on age related morbidity and mortality are
lacking, displaced children are especially vulnerable to these epidemics and
major killing diseases of malaria, diarrhoea, acute respiratory illnesses and
anaemia (UNICEF 2003).
Whereas in theory people should be safe within the camps, civilians were
often attacked, injured and abducted even by the state army. The rebel group
especially targeted children for abduction, as a way to increase their number of
soldiers as well as break resistance of the population. Records show that in
Opit camp, from 1996 to 2001 there were 18 attacks on IDPs (HURIFO 2002,
Rodriguez 2006b: 34).

Another confusing scenario, particularly in camps such as Pabbo, Alero,
Cwero, and Awac, is that the state soldiers were based in the middle of the
camps instead of at its periphery. This in effect exposed civilians to rebel
attacks, as the population would be reduced to a living shield when the rebels
would target the state army detaches.
In 1995 the scale of violence and child abductions increased. Church
sources report that 730 children were abducted in Pajule, over 250 in Puranga,
502 in Patongo and over 600 from Atanga in Kitgum district. Between 1993
and July 1996 70 teachers were killed by the LRA in Kitgum district. In Gulu
district in July 1996, 11 teachers and over 100 children were killed, 250
primary school children abducted and 59 primary schools burnt down, leading
to closure of 136 out of 180 primary schools. On 25 July 1996, 23 girls were
5
See The New Vision, 2006, April, 26 report about cholera epidemic in Agoro camp in Kitgum
district. The health officials attributed the epidemic to the poor sanitary conditions in Agoro
camp.
abducted from St. Mary’s College and on 21 August 39 boys from Sir Samuel
Baker School.
On 10 October 1996, in an incident that has since galvanized public
awareness of child abduction, 139 girls were abducted from St. Mary’s
College located at Aboke in Apac district (HURIFO 2002:16).
4. UNCERTAINTY ABOUT THE END OF HOSTILITIES

The Government of Uganda had to prove to the guests of the
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held in November
2007 that there is peace in the country. The change in affairs by President
Museveni announcing unconditional amnesty to the top LRA commanders and
on-going peace talks with the LRA mediated by the Riek Machar6 (the vice
president of South Sudan) should be seen in light of the CHOGM.
In the past the state initiated peace talks on several occasions, including in
1993 when a government delegation headed by the then Minister of State for
the pacification of the North, resident in Gulu, Mrs. Betty Bigombe, met LRA
rebel leader Joseph Kony and his top commanders in Pagik in Gulu district.
Some people interviewed cite meetings in deserted hills of Kitgum. In
February 1994, however, the peace talks collapsed after General Yoweri
Museveni gave LRA leaders a seven-day ultimatum to lay down their arms
and surrender or be flushed out of the bush. In 1996 the government set up a
Parliamentary Committee to probe the Northern conflict. In early 2005 with
the aid from the American people through the Northern Uganda Peace
Initiative [NUPI] platforms for peace talks both with the LRA and Sudan Head
of State were organized. In May 2006, the vice president and President of
Southern Sudan7 contacted President Yoweri Museveni with a letter from the
rebel chief Joseph Kony requesting for peace talks. These peace talks were
frequently reinforced with different military offensives, such as the early 1991
one which was code named as a ‘cordon and search operation’; Operation Iron
6
The New Vision reported the state peace talks delegation return from Juba on 24/07/2006 prior
to reaching an comprehensive decisions to end hostilities
7
President Museveni announced on 16, May, 2006 that Uganda and Southern Sudan have given
LRA rebel leader Joseph Kony until July to end hostilities. Mr. Museveni reached this
agreement with the President of Southern Sudan Mr. Salva Kiir to give Kony a last chance
during May 13, 2005 meeting in Kampala.
Fist offensive in 19968 and Operation North led by the then Divisional
Commander Major General David Tinyefunza, in 2002; and in 2006 Operation
Mop-up9 among others. It is in January 2007 that Northern Uganda was
declared a post-conflict state. Unfortunately, by this time, the population in the
Northern Ugandan districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader had borne the greatest
brunt of armed conflict.
5. ATTEMPTS TO PROVIDE SAFETY AND CARE

FOR CHILDREN BY NGOS
The forced removal to overcrowded camps and the failure of the

government to provide adequate resources and services forced the population
in war zones into dependence on aid and humanitarian agencies such as World
Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World
Vision (WV), and Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Médicines Sans
Frontières (MSF), and other local NGOs. Some of these agencies played an
important role in the creation of a phenomenon for which the children of Gulu
became known all over the world, their daily walks from their homes to the
safety of the city.
As data in the previous Section suggest, in the very camps created by the
state to offer ‘protection’ to Acholi people, there were various abduction

episodes, especially of children. In some instances, the state army was known
to flee to safer zones just hours prior to rebel attacks on these camps. From
2002 onwards, the pending insecurities and fear of attacks and abductions
prompted children to commute nightly to Gulu town for safety. To address this
core problem of insecurity, NGOs created night commuters’ shelters for these
children. In 2002, Noah’s Ark and Lacor Hospital shelters were established
and in 2004 Save the Children and Tee’ Okono night commuters’ shelters
among others. A survey by MSF in April 2003 of eleven night commuters’
8
Unlike other offensives which were within Ugandan national borders, Operation Iron Fist had
unlimited access into Southern Sudan and support by the United Stated Government having
identified Sudan as a terrorist state – a popular military base for the LRA.
9
The 601 Brigade Commander, Major Joseph Balikudembe, one of the commanders of the
‘Operation Mop-up’ going on in Pader, told journalists that 30 LRA rebels were killed in
Pader in April 2006. According to this report, three army commanders including David
Lakwo, Bosco Ocaya Latela, Jon Opio were killed reported by Apunyo Harriet (2006).
shelters in Gulu town found about 20,000 children commuted nightly due to
fear of being abducted.10
In April 2006, the state owned newspaper The New Vision published
features on ‘facts and myths’ about Northern Uganda. Concerning the plight of
night commuters, the state-employed authors Ochowun and De Temmerman11
reported that it was a myth that 40.000 children walked to town nightly for
fear of abduction. Ochowun (2006) suggested that in April 2006 the number of
children staying in Gulu night commuters’ centres were down to 6,369 from
the original 40.000 children since there was no more fear of abductions by
LRA rebels at night. He attributed the decrease in figures to the return of peace
in Gulu. Other factors were attributed to children’s leaving their homes to
Noah’s Ark night commuters’ shelters including lack of accommodation and
electricity at home.
A week later, however, Rodriguez wrote:
In effect, although publications by Ochowun and De Temmerman (2006)

suggested to readers that displaced people’s camps have closed down, Acholi
has been pacified and the sad long story has ended once and for all, with all
IDPs happily gone back home, experience in the North portrays a very
different reality. In reality the camps are still in place and the displaced
persons themselves will tell you that for them hardly anything has changed
and life continues to be as dull as ever. In essence, some of the Ugandan
press runs the risk of telling a fiction story about a return (read resettlement),
which, up to now, has not taken place (Rodriguez 2006a).
By observation of the authors between July 2005 and January 2006, there
was a substantial decrease in numbers of night commuters to the biggest
shelter in Gulu – Noah’s Ark. This was partly because of the relative peace in
Gulu district compared to the period of July-November 2004, when the first
author carried out the first phase of her field study in Gulu.
10
Since there was a variation in figures depending on how recent the last attack had been, it is
expected that a lower figure would be registered if the survey were conducted in a relatively
stable period. For instance, at Lacor Hospital night commuters’ shelter, a figure of 6,000
children were reported in 2004, yet in December 2003 there were 3000 children who
regularly spent nights at these tents provided by MSF (MSF-Swiss 2005).
11
Ochowun and De Temmerman (2006) had a mission to write on truths about the war in
Northern Uganda, from the state’s point of view with the objective of bringing all parties
involved or concerned about the war in Northern Uganda ‘at the same wavelength by
supplying the correct facts’.
Another cause may have been the deliberate closure of some of the
structures used by Noah’s Ark by the district security committee. One member
of the committee argued in an interview that “closure of the largest building
used by Noah’s Ark was to limit this organization’s activities since night
commuting was exposing especially girls to gender based violence such as
rape”. On the contrary, according to counsellors at Noah’s Ark who preferred
anonymity, partial closure of their premises was an attempt to ensure that three
more night commuters’ shelters built on the same Kaunda grounds in 2005
also got some ‘beneficiaries’.
The same voices have it that neighbouring shelters - the Save the Children
in Uganda (SCiU) shelter managed by its partner NGO-Rural Focus Uganda,
Tee’Okono and Gukipa night commuters’ shelters - strived to get children
from Noah’s Ark through offering ‘pulling factors’ such as snacks,
entertainment, scholastic materials and household utensils.
The district security committee had to intervene to regulate activities of
these institutions, which seemed to have become stiff competitors in offering
shelter to displaced children. In the wake of this competition, a substantial
number of children were keen in spending nights in night commuters’ centres
and not at home, hence raising other security issues.
Although the district security committee put in place a regulation which
banned offering night commuters with anything more than night
accommodation, at Noah’s Ark, children were frequently given biscuits,

clothes, and activities were organized for them with singing, dancing and story
telling in a bid to promote psychosocial well-being.
These generally beneficial activities were very different from
comprehensive interventions that would be needed to ensure the health and
well-being of the children that made use of the shelters. In the following
Sections we will describe how displaced children themselves identified,
interpreted and confronted the psychosocial illnesses they suffered from.
6. CHILDREN’S SUFFERING AND SURVIVAL

The first author spoke with displaced children between the ages of nine
and sixteen during her field research and shared with them their war
experiences. Before going into specific themes, an exemplary case is presented
to holistically show the complexity of children’s lived experiences in wartime.
It is exemplary since it reflects similarities with various other individual
narratives by displaced children.
All these narratives testify how such multifaceted experiences are dealt
with by displaced children themselves. The case illustrates how the breakdown
of social networks in wartime leads to complex health issues. In addition, there
is an inconsistency between intervention agencies and children’s modes of
dealing with such suffering.
Ojok’s Narrative on His Experiences and Management

of Psychosocial Suffering
In 2004 when the first author met him, Ojok (not his real name) was a
fifteen-year-old boy (1989) who was born in Kitgum four years after the
beginning of the twenty-year-old insurgency in Northern Uganda. When
telling his life history, he related how, whenever he asked his mother who his
father was, he provoked anger, tears and fear. His mother, like a substantial
number of women in Northern Uganda, had been raped by a group of men in
the rebel group. When she went to report the case to the state army, instead of
being helped she was detained for weeks and subsequently raped frequently by
a group of state soldiers. She managed to escape to one of the camps in the
neighbouring Gulu district, but was already three-months pregnant with Ojok -
a child-of-rape.
Statistics are unavailable but it is well known that as a consequence of any

armed conflict, a substantial number of children will be belonging to this
category. Ojok serves as an archetypal case. A substantial number of children
such as Ojok were neglected till they died of malnourishment or were
abandoned in public hospitals in Gulu. Ojok was lucky to survive till his age at
the time of the study.
When Ojok was two years old, his mother got married to a formerly
abducted child, who had escaped, and had settled in a camp in Gulu where she
lived. In this marital union they had three children, aged 13, 9 and 7 years
respectively in 2004. Although they were a relatively stable family, Ojok’s
stepfather succumbed to HIV/AIDS when his youngest child was five years
old. Before his death he had introduced his family to his patrilineal kin, but
made it clear that Ojok did not belong to the family.
According to Ojok, they had been living together in good peace with his
stepfather’s kin even after his death. However, two years later, he also lost his
mother due to HIV/AIDS. Being the eldest in the family of four orphans,
automatically Ojok assumed the responsibility of caring for his siblings,
including providing for food, healthcare needs and where possible educational
costs. He had to drop out of school in order to do leja leja (casual farm labour)
and other income generating activities to meet all these expenses. One
weekend in April 2004, he was summoned by his stepfather’s kin for a
meeting. In this meeting he was told that he did not belong to the family and
was subsequently ordered to vacate their land together with his siblings. To
confirm their determination, the entire kinship group uprooted all the crops
Ojok had on his farm and demolished the children’s house. Ojok together with
his siblings left for Lacor night commuters’ home where they lived at the time
of interviews in July 2004.
He still worked at the hospital premises and other neighbouring places, but
had many medical complaints. When Ojok is asked about his illness
experiences in a one-month recall he mentions malaria, cough and diarrhoea.
For malaria he bought chloroquine tablets from a grocery shop for 100Uganda
shillings (approximately 0.043 euros), but for cough he used mango and guava
leaves. The nurse gave him some yellow tablets for diarrhoea. For his siblings,
he bought chloroquine tablets when they had malaria.
According to the night commuters' shelter nurse where Ojok lived together
with his family, “he is always taking tablets of panadol for his headache,
which never recovers”. Sometimes, the nurse gives him a higher panadol
dosage, say three instead of two tablets, but still he complains of headache. At
night, Ojok presents another challenge to the people at the night commuters’
shelter. If he is not tossing around on his mat he is always having violent
nightmares. Therefore, the nurse gives him a dose of valium each evening.
However, in the recent past, the nurse complained, “even if Ojok takes five
valium tablets, they do not work!
The administration is considering giving him oxazepams and perhaps
other very strong tranquilizers”. Assessing Ojok holistically, it is clear that
underlying his persistent complaints is a web of all sorts of social and
psychological issues.
The main objective of this exemplary case is to show the complexity of
the effects of armed conflict on children’s lives, including their illness
experiences and quests for therapy. The content in Ojok’s story signifies a
child facing uncertainty, having relatives dying of HIV/AIDS, and the direct
effects of the breakdown of social networks leading to complex health issues
in wartime. Ojok as we mentioned, is a synecdoche or archetypal case of a
substantial number of children living in a situation of armed conflict who have
complex health and health care problems.
Other Wartime Children’s Narratives Signifying the Magnitude

of Their Psychosocial Suffering
Evidence from a substantial number of displaced children’s narratives

suggests that they all have indeed experienced similar events. For instance,
thirteen-year-old Oketch disclosed in one interview his traumatic experiences:
I lost both parents to abductions and LRA killings in 2002 and my elder
brother in a motorcycle accident in 2005. I have since that time been ‘like
parents’ to my four younger siblings. There are times when we do not have
food to eat. Twice we have been told to leave where we were staying due to
non-payment of hut rent. In both cases, the hut owners just threw away our
belongings while insulting us. We just moved to another suburb where we
could get another hut.
Apio a fourteen-year-old girl elaborated thus:
In Layibi camp, we have many problems but I never sit down to cry or
refuse to eat food! I can have par madongo and cwer cwiny (deep thoughts
and sadness) but I cannot show it to people. I at such times simply close
myself in the hut in order to cry about all these problems.
Another boy, Omony, added to the discussion by sharing his experience:
I was very angry with my sister-in-law when she burnt down the hut
with all my belongings. I almost ran mad. I even acted as if I was mad. In
desperation, I undressed and threw away the clothes I had put on. I wanted to
fight her or even kill myself. But friends calmed me down. They told me how
it was so common for people to lose items like us. When people kept telling
me such things, I shifted to stay temporarily with other friends in Kanyagoga.
There they found for me work to do at Caritas so that I could earn money to
buy a school uniform. That is when I became normal.
Another fundamental experience, which Omony shared, was about his

lack of sleep and persistent nightmares because of cen/tipo- that is the spirit of
his late father, who demanded that he performed a ceremony of guru lyel.
I rarely sleep throughout the night. I am constantly disturbed by my late

father’s tipu who demands that I give him money for alcohol and organise the
ceremony of guru lyel. I told my mother about it, but she advised me to smear
that plant atika all over me and put its branches at the doorpost and also
where I am going to sleep. Meanwhile she is still selling alcohol so that she
will save enough money for the ceremony.
Guru lyel, literally meaning repairing graves, was a frequently

recommended ceremony by displaced children as an effective activity to deal
with spirits of close kin which brought nightmares and sleeplessness.
Commonly, displaced children used tipo and cen interchangeably. Cen literally
means evil spirits which present as dead people in nightmares, imaginary
persons attacking people during the day or seeking revenge and compensation
in cases where wrongful death or burial were done by the living and tipo –
literally meaning images of deceased close kin.
A medical specialist in the region defined such experiences displaced
children named cen or tipo as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders coupled with
anxiety. As we shall explain later, cen could be viewed as an epitome and
culturally appropriate description of symptomatologies of distress in Gulu
district.
Of course there are overlaps with the documented literature pertinent to
the symptoms of PTSD, such as nightmares, hypervigilance, fear, persistent
headaches, but for clarity purposes cen will be adopted to refer to the specific
idiom of distress through which displaced children experience and explain
their psychosocial suffering.
A shocking experience that was only narrated by girls was rape. Fifteen
year old Acan narrated how her friend was attacked by three boys on her way
to one of the night commuters’ shelters:
Just last week (October 2005), my friend who works for the staff at
World Vision was delayed at home from going to the shelter because there
was a lot of work. Instead of leaving home by seven o’clock, she left at eight
in the night. On her way, three boys (students from the neighbouring
secondary school) ran after her and raped her. They ordered her to go to the
shelter afterwards. She reached very late at the shelter, feeling sick, but did
12
not tell any of the administrators. She simply went to bathe and later slept.
Since that night, she is often disturbed by cen which appears in the form of
huge men who attack and rape her.
12
The girl who discussed this phenomenon was taking care of a World Vision staff member who
was sickly due to HIV/AIDS. It is possible that another friend of hers was involved, but it is
likely that this is one example of a third-person discussion of such sensitive experiences like
rape.
It was a known fact that girls who commuted to the night commuters’
shelters were waylaid by soldiers, boys and security personnel. By
observation, one evening a girl about twelve years approached Noah’s night
commuters’ shelter while sobbing.
There were five boys about her age who followed closely while
they laughed. In inquiries to the girl, she disclosed how she had been
‘attacked’ by these boys. When Noah’s ark nurse and centre manager
were contacted to seek for action, the two adults refused to do anything about
the issue since such cases were common, and besides the boys had already run
away.
In another narrative, a thirteen-year-old girl, Anek discussed:
When our father told us to leave Alero and come to Gulu town where we
can study, he also rent for us a hut in Kirombe. But the hut was leaking, so
we would go to Noah’s Ark each night. One evening a mony (soldier) stopped
us when we were about to reach the shelter and said he had a message for my
older sister Florence (about 16 years old). He then ordered us to go away, and
leave them. Florence only came back after two weeks. She said, each time
she wanted to come back home, the mony would tell her that he can easily
shoot her. Before the end of the school term, Florence was chased, because
she was pregnant and sickly. When she went to Lacor hospital, she was told
that she had slim (HIV/AIDS). When she gave birth, the baby died shortly
afterwards. Florence was then admitted because of her sickness, until she got
better. She went back to live at Alero. But she has to come every month to
13
Lacor for more medicines .
Although rape was a difficult issue to discuss, even reporting it to

authorities did not guarantee action against perpetrators. One official in the
district security committee argued how “he preferred that such issues be
addressed at individual level”.
To make matters more complex, apart from the few girls who disclosed
their own experience with rape, a substantial number discussed it as “a
problem of cen which appears in the form of huge men in dreams to attack
them or a close friend who was raped”.
13
Florence was one of the clients in the PEPFAR programme. Clients to this programme
accessed antiretrovirals from Lacor hospital. In December 2005, Florence remarried another
soldier in Alero camp.
The Issue of Rape and HIV/AIDS
Coming back to the UNICEF (2005) report that over 50% of

displaced women and girls in Pabbo camp had been rape victims,
and comparing findings with conditions in Gulu municipality, in general
the municipality was a more conducive environment for such crimes
as rape since girls and boys commuted to the night commuters’ shelters in
the dark.
Various security personnel were stationed within the municipality,
but there was no strict follow-up concerning regular attendance of children
to the shelters.
The coordinator of Noah’s ark disclosed how less than half of the
children turned up at the shelter on days when the discotheques were
open throughout the night. Children interviewed discussed extensively dangers
young girls experience when they go to dance at night. They are often
lured by ‘big men’ especially soldiers to have sex with them. When
they refuse, they just take them by force. Nobody will try to intervene since
soldiers could easily shoot at the rescuers.
We have already given excerpts of a court proceeding in Arua where
two displaced girls sought justice with the help of Human Rights
Focus in Gulu. One of them had been infected with HIV/AIDS due to
rape by a UPDF soldier. Figures are scarce concerning how incidences

of rape, including of the night commuters, have led to their infection
with HIV/AIDS. However, it is likely that the epidemic is on the increase
in Northern Uganda. Although national statistics suggest that the
prevalence of HIV/AIDS had dropped from 18% in 1992 to 6.4%, figures
in North and Central region show a high prevalence of 8.3% (MOH
2004-2005).
The high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the conflict stricken
Northern Uganda are attributed to poor and congested living conditions
in camps, and high levels of poverty which fuel child prostitution as a
survival strategy. For example in October 2005, press reports divulged
how girls as young as eight were arrested by police in Gulu in prostitution
where they were charging a fee as low as 200–500 shillings (approximately
0.087-0.217 Euros).
The breakdown of social networks and high rates of gender based crimes
including rape are among such factors leading to high prevalence of
HIV/AIDS.
The Issue of Child Abductions and Reintegration of Ex-

Combatants in Communities
Boys as well as girls suffer from the effects of abductions. According to

UNICEF (2005), largely children aged 7-16 years are the target group for
abductions. These are often recruited in guerrilla fights. This practice has
contributed to untold suffering among the Acholi. The concerned parents
association gave a figure of 5.000 children who are missing and unaccounted
for. A significant figure can be assumed to have died due to the harsh
conditions they are subjected to, and others could still be in captivity. Girls are
often made into ‘wives’ of rebel commanders. No one has a clear idea about
the whereabouts of the ‘disappeared children’.
In extensive interaction with Apiyo, an ex-combatant, her narrative
concerning how she was abducted and subsequently trained to kill others was
graphic. Apiyo remembered the episode, which happened to her at 7 years of
age thus:
It had rained heavily that evening and night. This was a bad sign since
rebels attacked camps under such conditions. The rebels who came to abduct
us were people who knew us by name. My younger sister and I had hidden
close to a huge tree but tactfully, since we approached that place by first
going south of it then backwards. When the rebels came, there was no one in
the camps. So they started calling people randomly as if they wanted to be
shown where to hide. One man kept on calling Apiyo, Apiyo, where are you?
Stupidly I replied and showed him where I was hiding and how to get there.
He found us in a few minutes. He was armed and had a rope which he used to
tie us. He ordered us to go through the trading centre where loads of
foodstuffs they had looted were stored. We had to carry them on a slippery
ground in the dark. Whoever slipped and fell was beaten and my young
brother was killed before we crossed to Sudan.
Apiyo did not explicitly mention sexual abuses she had to bare. It is only
implicitly that during their ‘mission’ at night, any male soldier would rape any
female combatant of his choice. All this was to be suffered in silence or else
‘people in your group’ can kill you. At the first time of rescue she had been
diagnosed with serious illnesses in her stomach, which could be due to
sexually transmitted infections. In Apiyo’s narratives of her experiences in the
‘bush’, there was hardly any evidence to suggest that she considered herself a
vulnerable child, in need of professional help through counselling and talk
therapy. She frequently discussed the minute details of her experiences with
the LRA. Most importantly she feared the verbal and sometimes physical
attacks by victims of LRA violence and whose close kin were killed by the
LRA. She suggested solutions to her problem(s) as settling outside Gulu, to get
employed and perhaps rejoining armed struggle.
Parents and close kin of abducted children had to confront such challenges
with brevity. More often, however, depression or deaths of affected parents
and siblings have not been reported. For instance, one formerly abducted girl
from Aboke Girls School was welcomed back by her aunt since her mother
had died under unknown causes on hearing that her daughter had been taken to
rebel captivity. We do not know for sure the magnitude and forms of
psychological suffering the close kin and even siblings of abducted children
have to confront. A case of a mother dying of unknown causes shortly after
her child’s abduction could be an exemplary case signifying the magnitude of
such suffering. One of the limitations in the intervention to reintegrate former
child soldiers with their communities is the rejection and slander by the very
communities in which they are reintegrated (Akello et al. (2006).
One weekend in October 2005, two girls participating in a focus group
were close to a fight. Akellocan’s elder brother was abducted and killed by the
rebels. In that focus group, Apiyo - a former child soldier - was freely sharing
her experience(s) in the ‘bush’ and how she also killed so many people she
cannot even remember. Akellocan keenly listened and probed where necessary
about the death of her brother.
At one point, she quickly interrupted Apiyo’s narratives with shouts and
insults concerning how she was “lucky to live after killing all those people”.
Apiyo retorted by telling her that it was inevitable to carry out such acts to
which she prompted much anger. Children quickly surrounded her, wanting an
explanation about how killing people is inevitable. The first author calmed the
situation. Apiyo was from that day invited in different settings but not together
with other displaced children for interviews.
In sum, among children in Gulu district, suffering due to psychological,
social and material problems was a common phenomenon. In extensive
assessments of wartime children’s experiences, children frequently made their
needs and priorities explicit. Children prioritized as basic needs food,
household utensils, scholastic materials and school fees, lack of shelter,
difficulties in taking care of their sickly kin, and a need for protection against
rebels abductions and gender based violence.
Most of children’s material, social and psychological problems are
interlinked. Social and material problems may lead to psychological problems,
while psychological problems may lead to bad performance in social relations.

In short, children in Gulu identified mainly material needs as their priorities.
No child mentioned their need for counselling, footballs, costumes for
traditional dances and singing peaceful songs as a way of dealing with their
daily distress and challenges they have to confront.
We will now turn to NGOs’ activities in addressing children’s different
kinds of suffering in wartime.
7. THE NGO RESPONSE TO SUFFERING:

AN ANALYSIS OF ITS EFFECTIVENESS
The rather complex humanitarian crisis in the North of Uganda, attracted
numerous NGOs to alleviate suffering of the people especially children in
conflict zones. Records of registered NGOs and Community Based
Organisations [CBOs] in Gulu district show a total of 263 of local, national
and international institutions and organizations in place by August 2006. The
District NGO Forum - Gulu, which provided this figure in its 2006 report14
had been put in place to regulate and encourage new NGOs to establish their
offices not in Gulu district but elsewhere.
The main mandate of most of the humanitarian agencies operating in
Northern Uganda is the alleviation of suffering of people in conflict zones

(Gulu NGO-Forum-2005). Many NGOs focusing on health and well-being of
displaced people addressed in particular Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders
(PTSD) through counselling or promoting processing of the traumatised
memory of beneficiaries. PTSD symptomatology include recurrent
nightmares, feelings of sadness, social withdrawal, restricted affect, hyper
alertness and startle reflex, sleep disorders, loss of memory, guilt and
avoidance of activities that prompt recall of stressful events. It is for these
numerous symptomatologies of distress that solutions including counselling,
storytelling, creative games and traditional dances are recommended. The
rationale for selection of the NGOs we discuss below is that their mandates
had as main objectives to ensure psychosocial well-being and alleviate
suffering of children in conflict zones.
14
There are NGOs and CBOs not registered. Some are summarily termed ‘brief case’ NGOs and
CBOs. These were known to solicit for funds to alleviate suffering of people in wartime,
which they only used for direct individual benefits.
At the forefront were War-Child Holland and Canada whose major focus
was to promote psychological well-being of children in conflict zones. In Gulu
district War Child organised regular creative games competitions and
distributed footballs, toys and costumes for traditional dances. Further, Save
the Children in Uganda (SCiU) tried to contribute to the psychosocial well-
being of children through distribution of costumes for traditional dances,
peaceful songs and debates on topic of peace. However, in an interview with
one coordinator of a sub-project funded by SCiU in Bungatira primary school,
she elaborated on the difficulties to implement these activities:
I have been the coordinator of a SCiU project in my school for three

years. It is very difficult to coordinate the activities they tell us to coordinate.
We are instructed to organise debates on topics of peace, and also to compose
peaceful songs. It is almost impossible to get children to ‘remain behind’
when schools close at four o’clock, in order to do such activities. Some
children stay very far from school and they need to be home early since it is
dangerous to move in the evenings. Others are simply not interested. The
issue is that the monitoring officer from Kampala often comes at any time to
see what you have done with the money and costumes already donated to the
school. In that case we often request the head of the music and drama club to
teach one child a ‘peaceful song for presentation’. It would be better to give
the school SCiU club money for piggery and small-scale agriculture instead
of costumes for creative dances and peaceful songs. It is such income

generating activities, which would be useful for the displaced children, some
of whom live in child headed households.
Norwegian Refugee Council, World Vision, United Nations Children’s

Fund, among other humanitarian agencies, were instrumental in either
facilitating or organising sensitisation seminars about trauma, how to identify
traumatised children and how counselling, story telling, creative plays and
games help to relieve the traumatised memory of extreme events hence
facilitating psychosocial well-being.
World Vision Centre for Traumatised Children (WVCFAC) was
instrumental in counselling and subsequently reintegrating former
child soldiers with their kin. The Centre employed Christian approaches
of counselling. A similar institution – Gulu Support the Children
Organisation (GUSCO) – instead implemented Acholi ways of counselling
and reintegrating former child soldiers. The unifying factor between the
two institutions’ activities was the limited success of their activities
since fieldwork data suggests that rehabilitated and counselled former
child soldiers faced rejection. Often people demanded that these children back
to their rebel kin in captivity.
In connection to the preceding issue is the fact that ex-
combatants presented another complex challenge to the communities in
which they were reintegrated. Although some had been enrolled into
formal education or vocational institutions, and others preferred to
sustain themselves through small scales businesses, ex-combatants,
especially males, ended up as juvenile criminals. Over 70 % of children
in the juvenile prison in Gulu municipality were former child soldiers
(records from the psychiatric unit at Gulu regional referral hospital).
They were incarcerated for crimes like rape and defilement, theft, inflicting
grievous bodily harm of kin among other crimes. It was perceived that
there was a link between their criminality and their being traumatized while
in captivity.
Similarly, even ex-combatants who had undergone traditional
Acholi ways of counselling at GUSCO did not live with their kin. For
instance records from SCiU - Gulu office show that between January and
June 2005, from the 300 ex-combatants counselled and reintegrated into
their communities by GUSCO, no one was traced in follow-ups. Significantly,
some ex-combatants rejoined LRA armed struggle, some left for the
Labora farm and others preferred to live in suburbs of Gulu municipality
with people who did not know their history (Akello et al. 2006).
Another key institution in Gulu which counselled war-affected people
in order to help them to relieve their memory of extreme events with
limited response from the community was the Catholic NGO Caritas.
The coordinator of this counselling unit however attributed the resistance
and limited response by the target population to counselling services to
‘their lack of information’. Subsequently, she sensitised people every
morning in the most popular radio stations - Mega F.M. and Radio
Maria - about the importance of counselling sessions for their
psychosocial well-being. In those sessions the counsellor urged people
to “come to Caritas counselling centre for advice. The services
were completely free of charge,” to no avail. In another session the
sensitisation assumed another tone:
It is because these people, especially ex-combatants, who are the major

target group for our services, are so much used to material handouts, that they
cannot envisage the importance of counselling (Field notes, November 2005)
In a dissertation for a master in arts in psychology concerning why child-

mother ex-combatants never mentioned that they needed counselling but only
material support, the following analysis was given by the author:
The respondents were unexpectedly tuned to material assistance rather

than psychological needs. This phenomenon is due to ‘the girls’ having
stayed in captivity and become used to free material things. They were
therefore dissatisfied with whatever support offered to them, which was less
than the materials they grabbed. (Aceng 2005: 67)
If there was a resistance and limited response by the very people

including children who had experienced various forms of misery and
hardship to access counselling centres for solutions, then it is likely that
beneficiaries had different perspectives concerning how to address and
confront their suffering.
Critics of the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) argue that the
discourse neglects cultural differences in people’s expression of post-traumatic
stress through its emphasis on universal reactions (and solutions) to exposure
to extreme events. Kleinman and Kleinman (1992:291) suggest that “the very
idea of post-traumatic stress as a disorder invalidates the moral and political
meaning of suffering”. It is argued that adoption of trauma and PTSD in
conflict zones reflects a globalisation of western cultural trends towards the

medicalisation of distress and the rise of psychological therapies. In this
argument, it is postulated that for survivors, PTSD is a pseudo-condition; a
reframing of the understandable suffering into a technical problem to which
short-term technical solutions like counselling are applicable (Bracken 1998,
Richters 1998).
To further shed light on how trauma and PTSD intervention(s) are
applied in wartime, we will refer back to Ojok above. Ojok would
definitely be a beneficiary for NGO psychosocial support since he
clearly exhibited trauma symptomatology of sleeplessness, nightmares,
persistent headaches and sadness. He had experienced and
witnessed extraordinary events. Underlying all activities geared towards
‘relieving children’s memories’ of traumatic events is a discourse spelling
out the effect of experiencing, witnessing or hearing about extraordinary
events.
In short it is presumed that a victim to extreme events has an ‘interruption’
or a ‘freezing of memory’ at that event. This in effect leads to malfunctioning
of the brain’s memory processing centre (Summerfield 1998; Richters 1998;
Kleinman 1988). The NGOs interventions are guided by the assumption

that creative activities will restore normality through relieving children’s
memory processes, which are frozen at that extraordinary event. The
question is whether these procedures were in line with beneficiaries’
ways of coping with extreme events. For armed conflict, which had
persisted for two decades, many people had witnessed or experienced
extraordinary events including gruesome killings, abductions and rape.
Proponents of the trauma discourse argue that affected persons, especially
children, who have witnessed, committed and experienced ‘extraordinary
conditions’, need to ‘process their memory’ through activities such as creative
games, football, story telling and counseling. This leaves us to question
whether their arguments are consistent with ‘beneficiaries’ needs and
priorities. According to Chambers (1994) top-down approaches risk failure
since beneficiaries find them less useful.
In a workshop which the first author attended organised by SCiU, with the
main objective of drafting a five-year work plan for projects to be
implemented in Gulu district, a technical team from Kampala head office,
presented to SCiU partners ‘projects’ which were in-line with mainstream
projects. It was a macro-micro approach in project design since partners were
only required to contribute to the planning process through providing activities
for the already existing projects and not for what they themselves considered
as their priorities. The micro-macro level approaches in project planning

recommend beneficiaries’ participation, deriving development priorities as
agreed upon, and using their viewpoints in project design. For those
organisations that focus on children’s well-being, this implies that the way
children experience the challenges in their daily lives have to be taken
seriously.
8. BENEFICIARIES’ PERSPECTIVES
AND PRIORITIES
Earlier we illuminated on cen and tipu as local idioms of distress close to

the concept of trauma and PTSD. Other extraordinary events in wartime
included living in misery and abject poverty, loss of close kin, gender-based
violence often leading to infections with HIV/AIDS and child abductions. In
extensive follow-up of displaced children, none mentioned such solutions as
proposed for facilitating reworking of memory. They instead suggested where
severe forms of cen were experienced, using medicines of sleep, joining armed
struggle, and applying atika to incisions on the forehead with the help of an
ajwaka15, engaging in income generating activities such as doing leja leja
(farm labour), attending of prayer sessions and seeking material support from
NGOs which claim to target children as beneficiaries for psychosocial support.
Regarding the latter strategy, such vulnerable children were turned away since
NGOs usually channeled any assistance to their beneficiaries through partner-
NGOs and not directly to individual children.
To shed more light on the idea of using medicines of sleep as a coping
strategy to psychosocial suffering, evidence suggests that displaced children
used pirition and valium as remedies for sleeplessness. In a region where
medicines are readily accessed over the counter based on the symptom
experienced such as headache, it is easy to access medicines for sleep.
This scenario is facilitated by the lack of control measures concerning the
distribution of pharmaceuticals. The general trend is that pharmaceuticals were
accessed as commodities, where individuals’ purchasing capabilities
significantly predetermined the quality and quantity of medicines accessed.
Concisely, concerning modes of addressing psychosocial and material
needs, the perspectives of beneficiaries were not consistent with intervention
agencies’ approaches. While a limited number of projects in Gulu dealt
directly with the problems of armed conflict, NGOs ignored the psychosocial
impact of the war, such as the erosion and disintegration of social groups and
also ignored addressing direct human rights violations.
The conflict-affected people were often left to themselves, and where
there were attempts to address children’s suffering, emphasis was on their
traumatisation. It is possible that wartime children needed psychological help,
but they identified and prioritized their needs differently.
Similar observations were made by Weyermann (2007: 91) who argues
that psychosocial projects often focus only on the psychological and social
needs of impacted populations and neglect their material problems or the vital
social and political processes that so fundamentally influence the well-being of
their beneficiaries.
It is the neglect to provide material needs, which are beneficiaries’
priorities, which we sought to highlight.
15
Ajwaka are indigenous healers who are believed to be inspired by the spirit media. Sometimes,
they can use their powers negatively to harm people.
CONCLUSION
In sum, data provided above suggests the failure by the state and NGOs to
protect and promote psychosocial well-being of people in Northern Uganda.
Although the state, through its UPDF, engaged in various attempts to pacify
and protect her citizens during the prolonged civil war, the state was also a
perpetrator of various crimes. Meanwhile, NGOs’ main focus on
psychological needs or trauma, which they addressed through counselling,
singing peaceful songs, creative dances and engaging in debates of peace,
explains their failure to promote psychosocial well-being of vulnerable people.
The limited success was due to the top-down approaches in addressing
local community perspectives and priorities. Chambers (1994), Weiss (2000)
and Lieten (2003) recommend that beneficiaries identify and prioritise their
needs in project design.
We propose to address psychosocial suffering through implementation of
procedures recommended by vulnerable people themselves including
provision of material support, engaging in income-generating activities,
accessing formal education and using well-targeted pharmaceuticals and
indigenous modes of dealing with cen and tipu. And most importantly, armed
conflict is central to all these forms of suffering and thus needs to be stopped
and prevented.
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Reviewer: Dr. Andrew State, PhD, Sociologist and Senior Lecturer, Makerere
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Chapter 3
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HEROES:

ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCES
OF COMBAT-DECORATED WAR HEROISM
Brian Wansinka,1,* and Koert van Ittersumb

a
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, US
b
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, US
ABSTRACT
Which soldier in a platoon is most likely to be a future hero? A
unique, proprietary survey of 526 World War II combat veterans shows
two distinct profiles of combat-decorated veterans. While both rate highly
on three common personality characteristics – leadership, loyalty, and
risk-taking – the strength of these dimensions vary between those who
were eager to enlist (eager heroes) versus those who were drafted or
otherwise reluctant to enlist (reluctant heroes). While one might look
more like John Wayne in The Green Berets, the second looks more like
Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan. These findings offer two key
contributions. Conceptually, these profiles in heroism can help us better
understand leadership in crisis situations. Operationally, these profiles
*
Corresponding author. Email address: [email protected]; Thanks to Matthew M. Cheney &
John H. Hubbard, both of whom helped with this project as graduate students at the University
of Illinois. Also, special thanks for Marjan van Ittersum for sorting, coding, and entering all of
the data for this project and to Collin R. Payne (University of New Mexico) for his analysis
and insights on a related version of this paper (Wansink, van Ittersum, and Payne 2008).
64 Brian Wansink and Koert van Ittersum
may aid recruiters of future soldiers – along with fire fighters, police
officers, and rescue workers – by knowing what characteristics in
potential employees might best reflect the potential for heroic leadership.
They also offer insights as to how training can develop heroic potential.
Keywords: Heroism, Hero, Values, Military, World War II
Do personality traits and values reflect the heroic potential of a solider?

While training and encouragement can influence a person’s performance level,
it is unclear whether certain soldiers are more prone to act heroically because
of innate characteristics. Past work has described heroes only in general terms
and has inferred personality traits based on post-combat interviews or based on
the action or behavior that won them the medal. Furthermore, little attempt has
been made to quantitatively profile or segment different types of heroes to
determine how experiences, personalities, values, and behaviors differentiate
them from their counterparts prior to their service, upon release from the
service, and many years after the service.
Most accounts of the personality dimensions associated with heroism
(versus leadership) are historically (Ambrose, 1993), sociologically (Stouffer,
1949), and journalistically (Marshall, 1946) anecdotal rather than empirical.
Yet if heroism could be profiled, it could improve our conceptual

understanding of leadership during crises. Furthermore, it could provide
insight into the recruitment and training of those in hazardous professions,
such as the military, fire fighting, law enforcement, and rescue work.
Following a conventional dictionary definition, heroism refers to “the qualities
of a hero or heroine; exceptional or heroic courage when facing danger
(especially in battle)” (Wordnet, Princeton). A hero is defined as a person
“distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength” (Wordnet,
Princeton).
One reason why heroism has not been examined may be because heroes
are difficult to readily identify and are not available in large numbers. Unlike
successful leaders, heroism is infrequently observed except in extreme
situations. While there are everyday instances of heroism among police, fire
fighters, and rescue personnel, these often go unrecorded or even forgotten
other than to those fortunate individuals or families involved.
On a large scale, heroism in extreme situations occurs more frequently
during times of war. To obtain sufficient data to examine heroism, we
surveyed 526 combat veterans from World War II, 83 of whom received a
The Psychology of Heroes 65
medal for heroism. After identifying commonly noted anecdotal descriptions

of heroes, we investigated whether these characteristics were able to
distinguish men who had been awarded medals for heroism from those who
experienced similar levels of combat but who received no such medal. By
doing so, we show the extent to which these heroes have leadership
characteristics that differentiate them from other men.
The objective of this research is not to show the determinants of heroic
behavior, nor is it to definitively show how heroism changes a person’s life
after combat. Our objective is to show what personality traits, values,
behaviors are correlated with receiving a medal for heroism. No attempt is
made to assert causality. Personalities, values, and behaviors can influence
heroic behavior just as heroic behavior my recursively influence personality,
values, and behaviors. We show what factors have high correlations across
two types of heroes (reluctant and eager enlistees) compared to less decorated
counterparts who had experienced similar levels of combat.
Understanding the characteristics that define heroes will help clarify
the relationship between heroism and leadership. First, understanding
the characteristics of potential heroes may be useful in recruiting and
training soldiers and those who wish to be employed in hazardous
professions (including police, firefighters, and rescue workers). Second,
understanding the characteristics of heroes may also allow for
enhancing specific characteristics to stimulate heroic tendencies in otherwise

average soldiers, police officers, firefighters, and rescue workers. Last,
understanding the characteristics of heroes theoretically supplements to
traditional leadership frameworks.
A FRAMEWORK FOR PROFILING HEROISM

Few efforts have been made to profile heroes other than anecdotally. Part
of the common understanding of what makes heroes is often associated with
them being leaders, strong fighters, and courageous. While incomplete and
simplistic, these dimensions provide a starting point for examining what type
of characteristics might correlate with heroism. Admittedly, everyone with all
three dimensions is not a hero, nor do all heroes have all three dimensions.
One can be a hero without being a fighter, and one can be a courageous fighter
without necessarily being a leader. Yet by having some starting point, we can
generate the characteristics that will be worth further investigations.
The context of heroism provides some of the richest and memorable

anecdotes of leadership inspiring others. Consider the dramatic contexts
involving soldiers who receive medals for heroism. The criteria for awarding
medals such as the Bronze Star, Silver Star, Distinguished Service Cross, and
Congressional Medal of Honor include, can include rescue (such as saving a
comrade at great personal risk), extra aggressiveness (such as single-handedly
charging a pillbox), grenade situations (such as absorbing the full brunt of
enemy firepower), rear defense (such as delaying or holding off the enemy
while fellow soldiers escape), refusing medical aid (such as continuing to fight
despite physical injury), and leadership (such as spontaneously taking
command or showing leadership under extremely difficult circumstances)
(Gal, 1981; Blake, 1976).
The ambiguity surrounding the leadership experience in these extreme
contexts is not well understood. Indeed, few efforts have been made to profile
heroes other than anecdotally. Part of this anecdotal evidence of heroes is that
they are leaders who are willing to take risks and are highly affiliated with
their group (Egbert, Cline, & Meeland, 1954; Griffith, 2002; Jobe, Holgate, &
Scrapansky, 1983; Kellett, 1990). In addition, situational circumstances (such
as rescue situations, situations that require extra aggressiveness, or denying
medical help) provide an extra context from which leadership characteristics
produce heroic behavior.
Opportunities As a basic
to Win Medals framework
Depends (see Figure
on Personality and 1),
theitSituation
may well be
that winning a medal for heroism is a function of being the right person
(personality characteristics) at the right time (situation circumstances).
Personal Characteristics Situational Circumstances

 Leadership  Rescue
 Risk-taking  Extra aggressiveness
--Eager enlistee (adventurous)  Grenade situations
--Reluctant enlistee (selfless)  Rear defense
 Affiliation  Refusing medical aid
Medal for
Heroism
Figure 1. Opportunities to Win Medals Depends on Personality and the Situation.
Historical, biographical, and even fictional accounts of heroes show

notable consistency in their description of the character traits – and often even
the background – of those they describe as heroes. The singular view of our
almost mythical view of such heroes was perhaps best articulated in Joseph
Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). A sample of 50
descriptions of heroes in newspaper accounts, biographies, literature, and
history were used to generate a list of 73 characteristics that were mentioned at
least twice. A subsequent card-sorting task by seven individuals suggested that
these traits clustered around three basic dimensions that were worthy of further
examination.
1. The Leadership Dimension
Some personality traits may be correlated with the potential to act

heroically, but personality does not guarantee that soldiers will behave in a
certain way. A leader who is self-confident, for example, can motivate group
members by offering rewards and punishments, or by stressing the importance
of achieving a goal at any cost (Lou 1998). No specific personality trait
ensures heroic behavior, but many leadership characteristics indicate heroic
potential. Some of these leadership characteristics include a strong desire to
achieve, a desire to influence others for the common good, a high energy level,
persistence, competence, good interpersonal skills, self-confidence,
decisiveness, high stress tolerance, and high flexibility (Bass 1990).
However, personality traits are not the only factor influencing a person’s
ability to be an effective or heroic leader. Many external factors – such as
group size, expectations and cohesiveness – determine how a leader’s
personality combines with the group’s demands (Lou 1998). Combat, and the
military in general, place distinctive demands on leaders (Marshall 1946),
including three which are relevant to our discussion: 1) Diligence in the care
of men, 2) courage, creative intelligence, and physical fitness, and 3) innate
respect for the dignity of the position and the work of other men.
In order to respect their soldiers’ duties, combat leaders tend to lead by
example. World War II infantrymen mentioned “leading by example” more
often than any other traits when describing effective leaders (Kellert 1990).
Participating in these duties inspires troops and exemplifies bravery. The death
of a leader, consequently, has a devastating effect on a unit. One soldier said,
“To all of us, the loss of our company commander was like losing a parent”
(Sledge 1983).
Heroes were often anecdotally thought to have similar characteristics of

leaders in other contexts (see Nice, 1984; Mahan & Clum, 1971; Lau, 1998).
Some of these frequently mentioned leadership qualities included self-
discipline, resourcefulness, and high self-worth (Wong, Bliese, & McGurk,
2003; Sümer, Sümer, Demirutku, & Cifci, 2001; Looney, Robinson-Kurpius,
& Lucart, 2004; Mumford, Dansereau, & Yammarino, 2000; Bass, 1990;
Bartone, Snook, & Tremble, 2002). While these characteristics would not be
sufficient conditions for leadership or for heroism, it is likely they would be
prominent in someone who was awarded for heroism in a team situation.
H1: Soldiers who received medals for heroism will report greater self-
discipline, resourcefulness, and self-worth than those who faced
similar levels of combat but who did not receive medals for heroism.
2. The Loyalty and Group Cohesion Dimension
It has repeatedly been argued that in times of combat, men fight less for
ideals than for the respect, support, and commitment of their friends and the
proximate men in their squad. This “Band of Brothers” can result in heroic
efforts that would not have otherwise occurred if a man was alone or in the
company of strangers or those to whom he did not feel a commitment.

Veterans often mention the fear of letting their buddies down as a strong
motivating factor (cf. Brokaw 1998). All of these factors – friendship, personal
qualities, and battlefield conditions – contribute to one’s actions in combat
(Marshall 1946). Even men who do not consider themselves particularly as
athletic, brave, or as much of a leader find themselves performing
extraordinary deeds when circumstances require it.
If this commitment to others can inspire men to heroism, we might find it
evidenced in characteristics such as loyalty, selfless-ness, ability to make
friends and to work well with others. With leaders, historians and behavioral
scholars have examined how affiliation influences the dynamic between
leaders and their group (Oliver, Harman, Hoover, Hayes, & Pandhi, 1999).
With heroes, biographers and journalists tend to examine these dynamics
through the lens of loyalty. A small group’s performance in battle is often
anecdotally attributed to the loyalty of their leader and that leader’s ability to
work well with others in the squad (see Griffith, 2002). This dimension of
loyalty has been associated with heroic actions when faced with situational
circumstances that endanger the group (Mann, 1959). Those who are not
initially eager to participate in combat can still perform well with their
comrades because they are both loyal and see their squad-mates as what
Shakespeare referred to as “a band of brothers.” If military leaders are
generally believed to work well with others and are loyal, we might also find
these characteristics even more extremely displayed in military heroes.
H2: Soldiers who receive medals for heroism share the characteristics of
loyalty and working well with others more so than those who did not
receive medals for heroism.
3. The Risk-taking Dimension
All heroes2 display courage in demanding situations. However, courage is

not merely the absence of fear. If a soldier feels as though his life or values are
threatened, he can act courageously by facing the danger in spite of fear
(Moran 1967, Shalit 1988). Pressing on in the face of adversity despite fear is
perhaps the purest form of courage, and is most admired among combat
soldiers (Stouffer 1949; Marshall 1946; Rachman 1990). Whether this
behavior is true fearlessness or courage despite fear, seems to play little role in
soldiers’ perception.3 People who take risks are also likely to have more
opportunities to demonstrate heroic tendencies (Shalit 1988).

Interestingly, peer evaluations show that courage can be “contagious” or
learned. Paratrooper trainees who described themselves as “somewhat
nervous” prior to their first training jump reported that their self-confidence
greatly increased and their anxiety decreased after completing a successful
jump (Rachman 1990). The contagious effect of courage is similar to that of
fear (Moran 1967). The example that one man sets by doing his duty or
standing his ground under tremendous duress can inspire his fellow soldiers to
develop a similar sense of bravery. On the other hand, one man panicking can
send an entire unit running for the rear lines.
2
For purposes of discussing military heroes, we will define a recognized hero as a veteran who
has won a major combat decoration (Silver Star, Distinguished Service Cross, Medal of
Congressional Honor).
3
Fearlessness is different than courage because some people simply are not afraid of potentially
dangerous situations (Rachman 1990). Self-confidence is closely related to fearlessness, and
both combat veterans and paratroop trainees who described themselves as very confident
before combat or parachute training were much less likely to report feeling fear during their
respective experiences.
If a soldier is courageous, what more does he need to be a hero? The

answer is luck. There are certain situations in which heroic events tend to
occur or when a soldier performs a courageous act. Without the right moment,
a brave soldier can be a peerless fighter and a great battlefield leader, but
never have had an opportunity to show his full capabilities. An average trooper
may have greatness thrust upon him by circumstances beyond his control,
rising to the occasion by drawing upon reserves of strength and courage he
never knew he had.
Although leaders and fighters share many characteristics what
distinguishes one from the other? Certainly, leadership characteristics can
indicate other skills as well. In combat, leaders have often been associated
with strong fighting skills, which include intelligence, ability to deal with
stress, flexibility, and concern for others. A good fighter’s strong sense of
social responsibility and tolerance could be a result of his confidence in his
social and fighting abilities (Egbert 1954). An effective leader not only tends
to be more intelligent, strong, active, mature, and social than his peers (Mahan
and Clum 1971) but he also holds a realistic attitude about the military service
(Clum 1971). As a result, emotional sensitivity and stability allow him to adapt
to and lead in stressful situations.
Perhaps the most common characteristic anecdotally associated with acts
of heroism is that of taking a risk (see Egbert, Cline, & Meeland, 1954;
Ambrose, 1993; Blake, 1976; Stouffer, 1949; Lord, 1967; Rachman, 1990).
This is consistent across regardless of whether this involved a lone individual
saving a drowning person or a captain fighting alongside his a company of
soldiers. While characteristics of risk-taking among heroes have not
specifically been studied, studies among the general population have suggested
this trait is related to spontaneity, adaptability to change, and adventurousness
(Zuckerman, 1979; Levinson, 1990). These characteristics may be highly
associated with military heroes as well.
H3: Soldiers who received medals will report greater spontaneity,

adaptability to change, and adventurousness than those soldiers who
did not receive medals for heroism.
Heroic Typologies
Clearly not all heroes are created equal. While some have all the
characteristics mentioned earlier, others have fewer. While some may have
actively sought heroic situations, others may have simply been in a specific
situation at a specific time.
A priori it may be difficult to classify different types of heroes, but there is
ample evidence that two common types involve what we might call reluctant
heroes and eager (or non-reluctant) heroes.
Whereas the former may simply see himself as “doing his duty,” the
latter is more apt to have been more assertive or more directed in
putting himself in situations that were more prone to heroic activity. There is
reasonable evidence for this reluctant vs. eager personality profile. Stouffer
(1949) reported one segment of good fighters felt reasonably eager for
combat and tended to reflect positively on their military service. While
participating in combat, these eager enlistees felt comfortable volunteering
for more dangerous assignments, especially if they strongly believe in the
cause (Marshall 1946). By striving to accomplish the goal at all costs,
fighters who were eager to enlist displayed confidence without
noticeable concern about being injured.
Displaying eagerness to participate in a worthy cause at any cost
also inspires peers (Marshall 1946). Similarly, veterans often mention the
fear of letting their buddies down as a strong motivating factor (cf.
Brokaw 1998). Of course, men who are not initially eager to participate
in combat can still perform well with their comrades. Military
historians discuss the importance of commanding leadership and

effective communication to motivate groups (Marshall 1946). All of
these factors – friendship, personal qualities, and battlefield conditions –
contribute to one’s actions in combat. Even men who do not
consider themselves particularly as athletic, brave, or as much of a leader
find themselves performing extraordinary deeds when circumstances
require it.
While displaying eagerness to participate in a worthy cause “at any cost”
can inspire peers, it might also be inspired by peers (Marshall, 1946). Veterans
have repeatedly claimed that a strong motivation for seemingly selfless
behavior in combat is that of not letting down their comrades or “brothers in
arms” (Marshall, 1946). This suggests another characteristic of risk-taking for
heroes may be selflessness. That is, for some, heroism may not involve risk-
taking for the sake of excitement as much as it involves the willingness to
sacrifice oneself for the benefit of the group. Thus, we believe that:
H4: Reluctant enlistees who have won medals for heroism should report
greater selflessness than any other group of veterans.
The Long-term Impact of Heroism on Values and Leisure

Behaviors
While soldiers with certain personality characteristics and eagerness to

join the military had great potential to act heroically, actually receiving a
medal for heroism may have influenced their personalities and values after the
war. While medals may have a limited effect on the sense of accomplishment
and self-respect among soldiers who were eager to enlist, it likely will have
boosted the sense of accomplishment, self-respect, and self-fulfillment among
those who were reluctant to enlist. While reluctance to enlist may have been
driven by many factors, low levels of a sense of accomplishment and self-
respect may have been critical. Surviving acts of acknowledged heroism will
have boosted their sense of accomplishment and self-respect.
H5: Receiving a medal for heroism should be related to higher levels of

accomplishment, self-respect, and self-fulfillment among reluctant
enlistees than eager enlistees.
Sense of accomplishment, self-respect, and self-fulfillment refer to traits

associated with the self. How will medals affect heroes’ perception of their
relationship with others, such as feeling well-respected, having warm
relationships, and for instance their sense of belonging? Receiving a medal for
heroic behavior is unique, and in that respect sets heroes apart from the pack.
This then would suggest the receiving a medal for heroic behavior may
negatively influence heroes’ perceptions of their relationships with other. This
effect may depend though on whether some enlisted reluctantly or eagerly. For
those soldiers reluctant to enlist, receiving a medal may boost their self-respect
(see hypothesis 5) and therefore increase their perceptions of feeling well-
respected and a sense of belonging. Soldiers eager to enlist may already have
had well-established relationships. Winning a medal may make them feel
unique and setting them apart from the rest.
H6: Being awarded a medal for heroism will be associated with stronger
feelings of respect and belonging for reluctant enlistees than for eager
ones.
Next, we hypothesize that winning a medal will increase soldiers’ feelings

of security. This effect is expected to be larger for reluctant enlistees than
eager enlistees. The rationale is that the medal will “reveal” a side of their
personality that reluctant enlistees may not have been aware off – they are able
to act when confronted with immediate life-threatening danger. While we still
expect a positive effect for eager enlistees, the effect is expected to be lower.
H7: Being awarded a medal for heroism is more strongly related to

feelings of security for reluctant enlistees than for eager enlistees.
Finally, we examine whether winning a medal influences daily activities

soldiers engage in when returning to their regular lives. As a generic main
effect, we propose that winning a medal will instill a sense of “active can-do”
attitude on soldiers. And, this effect is likely larger for reluctant enlistees
based on lower levels of self-respect and self-fulfillment. Consequently, we
expect that winning a medal will positively (negatively) influence the
likelihood of being engaged in physically and mentally active (passive)
hobbies, and even more so among reluctant enlistees.
H8: Fifty years after receiving a medal for heroism, soldiers will be more
likely to be physically and mentally active than those receiving no
such medal.
PROFILING WORLD WAR II COMBAT HEROES

Method and Participants
A random national sample of 7,500 World War II veterans was asked to

complete a questionnaire about their experiences before, during, and after the
war. Of the 7,500 questionnaires that were initially mailed, 3188 were
undeliverable (due to death), including 72 that were returned by the late
veteran’s spouse. Six of these involved husbands who had passed away within
one month of the mailing. One thousand follow-up calls indicated that
approximately 53% of the remaining non-respondents were individuals who
had passed away, or who could not complete the survey because of health
reasons, such as blindness, Alzheimer’s, paralysis, or illness. Other than this,
there was no significant difference between those who responded and those
who did not.
In all, a total of 1123 surveys (25.6%) from World War II veterans were
received in a timely enough manner to be included in the study. If we estimate
that delivered surveys that were not returned include 53% of those homes
where the veteran was deceased or incapacitated, a more accurate reflection of

the response rate would be 42.8 % response. This result was determined as
follows: 4311-1123 = 3188 delivered non-responses * .47 = 1498 physically
capable non-responders; 1123/(1123+1498) = 42.8% response rate from those
who potentially could respond. Fourteen surveys were eliminated because the
majority of the questions were not completed and another three surveys were
eliminated because the respondents were German soldiers during their time of
military service in World War II.
Because it would be misleading to compare recipients of major combat
awards with soldiers who had not experienced similar levels of combat, we
examined only those who had experienced heavy and frequent combat (n =
526). This was measured by using semantic differential scales which asked
veterans to indicate how frequently (1 = infrequent; 9 = frequent) they
experienced combat and the intensity of the combat they experienced (1 =
light; 9 = heavy). In addition, because of imperfect information and political
considerations, most measures of heroism will be imperfect. As a surrogate,
we focus on heroism that has been acknowledged through the receiving of a
major medal. For the purposes of this study, 83 veterans who won a Bronze
Star, Silver Star, Distinguished Service Cross, or Congressional Medal of
Honor were included in the sample. In total, 526 veterans were used in this
study, with 83 of them receiving a medal for heroism.
Survey Instrument
Each veteran was sent a 16-page survey, a cover letter, and a business
reply return envelope. The cover letter asked them to complete the survey.
For their participation, a small donation was made in their name to the World
War II Memorial. They were sent a copy of the major findings of the survey,
and they were invited to a symposium that discussed the results. The
survey asked respondents a range of questions regarding these personal
characteristics.
The military leadership items (I was a strong leader, I was self-disciplined,
I was resourceful, I had high self worth), the risk-taker items (I was selfless, I
was spontaneous, I felt adventurous, I was adaptable to change), and the
cohesion items (I was loyal, I worked well with others), and all showed
acceptable internal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = .623, .735, .789). In
addition, principle components analysis revealed that each set of items loaded
on a single factor.
To determine their eagerness to join the military, respondents were asked

to note on a 9-point Likert Scale (1=strongly disagree; 9 = strongly agree) how
eager they were to join the military. While another measure of their eagerness
to join the military is whether they were drafted or enlisted, a pre-study found
that this would not have been an appropriate indicator of eagerness because
some men less eagerly enlisted because of pressure from friends and family
while others were drafted prior to the time at which they would have otherwise
enlisted voluntarily (e.g., an upcoming birthday or high school graduation).
Respondents were classified as eager to join if they had circled a number on
the questionnaire that was higher than the mean. Similarly, respondents were
classified as non-eager to join if they had circled a number that was equal to or
lower than the mean (6.2 out of 9).
RESULTS
The Three Dimensions of Heroism
Consistent with what we hypothesized, soldiers who received medals for

heroism would be more likely to rate themselves as higher on leadership-
related traits (H1). As Table 1 indicates, men who won medals rated
themselves as strong leaders (F1,525 = 2.7, p < .05) than those who experienced
similar levels of combat but who were not awarded a medal for heroism. In
addition, those receiving medals for heroism also rated themselves as being
more self-disciplined (F1,525 = 3.4, p < .05), more resourceful (F1,525 = 4.2, p <
.05), and as having higher self-worth (F1,525 = 3.1, p < .05).
A second hypothesized dimension of heroism is that loyalty and group
affiliation (H2). Consistent with this, those who were awarded medals for
heroism rated themselves as significantly more loyal (F1,525 = 2.9, p <.05) than
those who were not awarded a medal. In addition, they also rated themselves
as better able to “work well with others” (F1,525 = 3.5, p < .05).
The third hypothesized dimension of heroism involves characteristics
related to risk taking (H3). As expected, those who received medals for
heroism reported a greater inclination toward risk-taking characteristics such
as those including spontaneity (F1,525 = 2.6, p < .05), being adaptability to
change (F1,525 = 4.8, p < .05), and adventurousness (F1,525 = 6.7, p < .05).
When those awarded medals for heroism were separately analyzed based
on whether they enlisted (eager) or drafted (reluctant), it was also found that
reluctant enlistees who won medals for heroism reported a greater degree of
“selflessness” than any other group of veterans (H4). Table 1 shows these
means (MedalReluctantm = 5.8; NomedalEagarm= 5.4; MedalEagarm = 5.2;
NomedalReluctantm = 5.1), and reports the interaction between groups was
significant (F1,523 = 2.9, p < .05).
Table 1. Three Primary Dimensions of Heroism
Dimensions of Men Who Were Major Medal F-values

Heroism Not Awarded Winners1
Medals
Reluctant Eager to Reluctant Eager to Effect Effect of Medals x
to Enlist Enlist to Enlist Enlist of Eager Eager
(n=207) (n=236) (n=33) (n=55) Medal Enlistment Enlistment
General Leadership
I was a strong 5.5 6.1 6.0 6.4 2.7* 3.4** 0.1
leader
I was self- 6.7 7.5 7.1 8.0 3.4* 12.7** 0.1
disciplined
I was 6.4 7.2 6.8 7.7 4.2** 12.5** 0.1
resourceful
I had high self 6.9 7.5 7.3 8.0 3.1* 8.3** 0.0
worth
Loyalty
I was loyal 7.7 8.3 8.1 8.5 2.9* 7.9** 0.2
I worked well 7.2 7.9 8.0 7.8 3.5* 1.3 5.1**
with others
Risk-taker
I was 5.2 6.0 5.9 6.2 2.6* 4.0* 0.6
spontaneous
I felt 5.4 6.4 6.4 7.0 6.7** 8.1** 0.5
adventurous
I was adaptable 6.8 7.3 7.3 7.8 4.8** 6.8** 0.0
to change
I was selfless 5.1 5.4 5.8 5.2 0.7 0.2 2.9*
Note: Survey respondents ranked characteristics on a 9-point scale (1=Strongly
Disagree, 9=Strongly Agree).
1
Medals include the Bronze Star, Silver Star, Distinguished Service Cross,
Congressional Medal of Honor.
* p<.05; ** p < .001.
.
Post-War Values and Leisure Behaviors of Heroes
While soldiers with certain personality characteristics and eagerness to

join the military had great potential to act heroically, actually receiving
a medal for heroism may have influenced their personalities and values
after the war. For instance, medal winners are expected to feel a higher
sense of accomplishment, self-respect, and self-fulfillment than non-medal
winner.
Consistent with H5, a significant interaction effect shows that the effect of
winning a medal on their sense of accomplishment (F1,529=4.1, p<.05), and
self-respect (F1,529=2.7, p<.05), depends on how eager they were to enlist.
Winning a medal increases the sense of accomplishment and self-respect of all
medal winners, but more so among reluctant enlistees. A similar directional
effect is found for their sense of self-fulfillment.
Winning a medal is further expected to influence perceptions of their
relationships with others, and even more so among eager enlistees (H6).
Consistently, winning a medal has a positive effect on their feelings of warm
relationships (F1,529=8.5, p<.05), and sense of belonging (F1,529=7.5, p<.05)
among eager enlistees, but a (small) negative effect among eager enlistees.
Winning a medal boosts feelings of being well-respected for both reluctant and
eager enlistees (F1,529=4.59, p<.05).
Finally, consistent with the idea that medals boost soldiers sense of
security, we do find a main effect for this (F1,529=3.9, p<.05). While the effect
seems marginally higher for reluctant enlistees (7.5 vs. 8.1) than eager
enlistees (7.9 vs. 8.1), the effect is not significant.
Being awarded a medal was also reflected in the types of activities
people engaged in (H8). Compared to non-medal winners, medal winners
were much more likely participate in active hobbies, such as hunting
(F1,529=10.1, p<.05) or mall walking (F1,529=3.7, p<.05). An opposite
effect was found for passive hobbies. Medal winners were less likely to
participate in passive activities such as going to movies (F1,529=2.1, p<.05) or
renting videos (F1,529=2.7, p<.05). Similar effects are found for mental
acitivies. Medal winners are more likely to read books than non-medal
winners (F1,529=4.4, p<.05). Similar directional effects are found for the use of
computers and for volunteering.
Figure 2.
Comparing the Values of Reluctant and Eager Heroes versus Non-heroes
9 Ratings
(1=low; 9=high)
8.5
7.5
6.5
y
t
ed
t
ps
t
ec
en
en
rit
in
hi
ct
ng
cu
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m
ns
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ish
Se
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A
ar
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of
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Non heroes (Avg) Reluctant Heroes Eager Heroes

Figure 2. Comparing the Values of Reluctant and Eager Heroes versus Non-heroes.
Table 2. How Does Winning a Medal Relate to One’s Values

55 Years Later?
Men Who Were Major Medal F-values

Not Awarded Winners
Medals
Today, 55 years Reluctant Eager to Reluctant Eager to Effect of Effect of Medals x
after the war, I to Enlist Enlist to Enlist Enlist Winning Eager Eager
value … (n=207) (n=236) (n=33) (n=50) Medals Enlistment Enlistment
A sense of 7.6 8.2 8.5 8.4 9.0* 2.6* 4.1*

accomplishment
Self-respect 7.9 8.4 8.6 8.5 7.9* 1.1 2.7*
Self-fulfillment 6.9 7.4 7.5 7.5 3.0* 1.9 1.8
Well-respected 7.6 8.0 8.2 8.2 4.5* 1.4 1.8
Warm 7.0 7.6 8.0 7.3 2.4* 0.1 8.5*
relationships

Not Awarded Winners
Medals
Today, 55 years Reluctant Eager to Reluctant Eager to Effect of Effect of Medals x
after the war, I to Enlist Enlist to Enlist Enlist Winning Eager Eager
value … (n=207) (n=236) (n=33) (n=50) Medals Enlistment Enlistment
A sense of 6.7 7.4 7.6 7.0 1.4 0.0 7.5*

belonging
Security 7.5 7.9 8.1 8.1 3.9* 1.2 1.0
Note: Respondents were asked to rate the above values on a 9-point scale (1=very
unimportant; 9=very important). *p<.05.
Table 3. Soldiers Who Won Medals Seek More Active Hobbies

than Non-Medal Winners

Not Awarded Winners
Medals
Times per Reluctant Eager to Reluctant Eager to Effect of Effect of Medals x
month I … to Enlist Enlist to Enlist Enlist Winning Eager Eager
(n=207) (n=236) (n=33) (n=50) Medals Enlistment Enlistment
Physically
active
Hunt 0.3 0.3 0.8 1.5 10.1* 1.7 2.3*
Walk in mall 2.8 2.3 4.7 5.7 3.7* 2.9* 0.8
Physically
passive
Go to movies 0.7 0.8 0.5 0.4 2.1* 0.0 0.3
Rent movies 0.7 0.8 0.5 0.3 2.7* 0.1 0.6
Mentally
active
Use a computer 15.2 17.6 18.8 18.8 0.4 1.9* 0.7
Volunteer 6.8 8.0 6.8 10.0 0.3 1.1 0.3
Read a book 29.6 29.3 31.6 43.6 4.4* 2.4* 2.6*
Note: Results are the mean times per month these activities were performed. *p<.05.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
A number of historical, sociological, and journalistic accounts have
attempted to define the characteristics of heroes. These have been anecdotal
rather than quantitative. As a result, understanding how to recruit heroes has
relied more on stereotypes (i.e., trying to recruit or promote “athletic leaders
who are extraverted”) rather than on an empirically-driven understanding.
Thus, efforts for understanding heroes have been theoretically, empirically,
and operationally disappointing. The purpose of this study was to provide
quantitative evidence of systematic underlying similarities and differences of
World War II military heroes.
This study of World War II combat veterans provides initial empirical
evidence of heroic characteristics that have previously been only been reported
anecdotally. The results suggest that heroes are leaders (H1), are loyal (H2),
and are risk takers (H3). In addition, we found that reluctant enlistees who had
been drafted who had won medals for heroism reported a greater degree of
selflessness than eager enlistees who had enlisted (H4). These results offer
further dimension and insight to previously made anecdotal accounts of
heroism. This empirical contribution may enable a more detailed or rigorous
re-examination of anecdotal accounts.
Personality Profiles of Reluctant and Non-reluctant Heroes
Perhaps the most notable commonality among medal winners is their

attitude and personality characteristics before the war. Soldiers who felt eager
to join the military were often outgoing and accepting of their combat duties,
revealing their combination of self-discipline and fondness for adventure.
Because of their high sense of confidence, they also volunteer for dangerous
assignments, experiencing more opportunities to work with groups and display
their leadership skills. In addition, they are extremely capable of adapting to
change, relating to their open-mindedness to new ideas. Recall that one
condition that earned the Congressional Medal of Honor was when an
individual displayed courage in order to benefit other group members. In short,
soldiers who felt eager to join the military tended to have more opportunities
to earn medals.
However, even soldiers who felt reluctant to join the military still had
opportunities to earn medals. Regardless of whether a soldier was eager to
enlist, medal winners tend to be disciplined, resourceful, social and selfless.
Furthermore, even if a soldier does not have the personality traits that strongly
correlate with being a leader, the stress of a traumatic event can lead anyone to
display courage or social responsibility. After winning a medal, then, soldiers
with reserved personalities may feel more confident and able to overcome
spontaneous and stressful situations, often providing a silent strength for their
comrades.
Working with comrades significantly influenced how individuals
performed in battle. Specifically, when a soldier felt eager to join the military,
he was also likely to effectively work well with others. Without team-working
skills or enthusiasm of joining the military, soldiers have fewer opportunities
to win medals. However, even when a soldier felt eager to join but did not
work well with others, he still had high potential of acting heroically. The
opportunity to act heroically can override a soldier’s dislike of working in
groups or enlisting. Therefore, serving in the military and receiving a reward
can change one’s values or personality characteristics.
In addition to the circumstances of combat, some soldiers have
more opportunities than other soldiers to act heroically. This could be because
their personalities influence their behavior during the war (Table 1).
Personality traits can determine one’s ability to be a team leader as well as a
team player.
For example, in general medal winners rate themselves as being
resourceful and self-disciplined, meaning that they can simultaneously obey

orders and lead others by example. However, although medal winners rate
themselves as resourceful, they do not always give advice to others. Nor do
they consider themselves as more dominant than others. Rather than being
domineering, medal winners display leadership skills through their actions.
Therefore, when working in groups, medal winners feel comfortable and more
social than others. Their high self worth and ability to make friends easily can
increase their desire to be loyal and selfless, doing whatever it takes to benefit
the group.
The Values of a Hero
While soldiers with certain personality characteristics and eagerness

to join the military had great potential to act heroically, actually receiving
a medal for heroism influenced their personalities and values after the
war. Medal winners, regardless of how eager they were before the war,
attach more importance to a sense of accomplishment and self-respect.
Because medal winners desire self-fulfillment as well as security, they also

seek warm relationships.
Although veterans’ values can change regardless of how eager they felt to
enlist, medal winners who did feel eager value a sense of accomplishment
after the war. Remember that eager enlistees were more outgoing, adaptable
and confident. Because had self-confidence, they looked forward to joining the
military and sought more challenging tasks in order to feel accomplished.
Because they show leadership traits, they are less likely to consult others when
making decisions. After the war, a confident veteran could also need less
reassurance. As a result, he may not feel the need for a warm relationship.
Confidence can also explain why eager soldiers feel less self-satisfaction
than the medal winners who felt reluctant to enlist. Entering a situation with
confidence includes expectations of successfully completing a task, which
increases the potential of winning a medal. Personality traits that include low
self-confidence lead soldiers to feel reluctant to join the military. After
winning a medal, then, their confidence increases and triggers their desire for
respect and warm relationships that provide reassurance and security.
Interestingly, major medal winners seem less likely to value warm
relationship and to need a sense of belonging compared to those reluctant to
enlist. While part of this is consistent with the mythical “Hero of a Thousand
Faces” that Joseph Campbell describes, it may also be that the more reluctant
heroes did what they had to do basically because of a commitment to

relationships and belonging rather than for an eagerness that could be
motivated by other reasons. Consistent with this is their tendency to rate
themselves as being more selfless than those who ere more eager to enlist (58
vs. 5.2).
The Hero at Rest
Depending on how they felt before the war and on how they performed
during the war, veterans had varying ideas of what satisfies or relaxes them.
Post-war activities can be a way for veterans to release or cope with stress.
Just as winning a medal decreases the level of need for satisfaction and warm
relationships, winning a medal also tends to lead veterans to seek more active
hobbies than non-medal winners (Table 3). Medal winners take more walks
and see fewer movies, indicating that they choose more active hobbies.
However, their hobbies also seem to be hobbies that they do by themselves.
Reading a book and hunting allow medal winners to be in solitude.
Interestingly, the level of activity that medal winners seek in their hobbies
is also influenced by how eager they felt to join the military. Veterans who felt
eager to enlist use computers, play golf and go to plays more often than
veterans who were not eager to enlist. Therefore, veterans who were eager
before the war enjoy hobbies that are more subdued, while veterans who were
reluctant before the war enjoy hobbies that satisfy their desires for excitement.
Perhaps more significant is that winning a medal greatly relates to how much
time each group of veterans hunts. Relating hunting with combat, eager
veterans who won medals could feel more confident in their abilities to
navigate in the woods or use guns. This could explain why non-medal winners
feel less comfortable or less satisfied by hunting.
Smoking is another behavior that relates to veterans’ responses to stress.
During the war, the government provided cigarettes as a portion of the
soldiers’ rations, increasing veterans’ likelihood of smoking after the war.
Veterans who were eager to enlist smoke the most amounts of cigarettes,
regardless of whether they won a medal during the war. This could relate to
their tendencies to enjoy discrete hobbies, seeking time by themselves. Rather
than releasing emotion in a warm relationship, veterans who felt eager to enlist
appreciate time to reflect. Smoking could be one activity that allows them to
do so.
Going to church after the war, on the other hand, was not influenced by
eagerness as much as by winning a medal (see Wansink and Wansink, this

volume). While feeling eager before the war is related to winning a medal,
veterans who felt eager but did not win a medal are the veterans who attend
church most often. Recall that eager veterans felt more confident during the
war, leading them to expect or feel less self-satisfaction of winning a medal.
Therefore, if eager veterans did not win medals, they may be more likely to
seek a sense of self-respect and self-discipline. Church may be one source of
comfort and motivation.
Although winning a medal influences the level of action and respect
sought through hobbies, winning a medal does not affect what types of
information veterans seek. Rather, eagerness to join leads to veterans to learn
about history through movies, books, or museums.
It is also curious as to why there are the differences in hobbies. A case can
be made that heroes are more active than non-heroes – they hunt and walk
more and they watch fewer movies and rent fewer videos. This could be
because they are basically more action-oriented, but it could also be simply
because they are healthier. It is important to understand that strong causal
explanations can not be made.
Can Pre-War Attitudes Foreshadow Heroism?
Eagerness to join the service relates to many personality characteristics

and leisure activities, but these attitudes do not necessarily mean only eager
veterans won medals. What is interesting, however, is how veterans feel after
winning a medal compared to veterans who did not receive a medal. Winning
a medal tended to decrease the prevalence of “social” personality
characteristics (e.g., “I often consult with others;” “I like excitement;” “I like
to go to Las Vegas”). Rather, winning a medal increases the likelihood of
veterans enjoying solitary activities, such as reading or using a computer.
Reluctant enlistees who did not win medals, however, sought more social
attributes and hobbies.
If we look at eager and reluctant veterans separately, we start to see
some possible explanations for these trends. Perhaps eager medal
winners were exposed to particularly horrific circumstances under which
they won their decoration. These experiences may have soured their
outlook on life and made them less likely to participate in activities that
involve other people. Reluctant respondents, on the other hand, might
view their medal-winning experience as a very positive lesson, reassuring
them that they are capable of accomplishing anything. Medals can awaken
self-confidence and a desire to meet people.
Rather than speculating on differences in experience, we might consider

what we mean by “eagerness to join the service.” Different people were eager
to join for different reasons. Eagerness, after all, is not particular to assertive,
competitive and optimistic people. Many veterans might have been eager to
join because they felt a patriotic duty to defend the American way of life.
These people might not have been the most adventurous soldiers, but they
were more serious and more confident that they were fighting for a noble
cause. After being exposed to combat and the harshness of life on the front,
however, their enthusiasm might have waned. By indicating that they did not
seek excitement, some veterans reveal their appreciation for peaceful
lifestyles.
Reluctant veterans, as a group, might have joined the military simply
because they had to, leading to their less intense senses of duty compared
to their eager brethren. Perhaps these veterans thought of the military as
an interruption to their families or careers. Once they won a medal, however,
these reluctant veterans might have felt more confident. As a result, when
they returned home, their confidence translated into determination to make the
most of their time.
We have shown that medal winners, or heroes, do indeed tend to be

strong, self-confident leaders. However, heroes also appear to be just as likely
to be quiet and reserved as they are outgoing and adventurous. The unathletic,
book-reading soldier in the back of the squad bay, then, is as much a candidate
to perform a truly valorous deed in combat as his aggressive, social bunkmate.
Limitations and Future Research
This initial study of heroism provides empirical evidence of otherwise

anecdotal accounts of characteristics of both eager and reluctant heroes. We
also show how empirical evidence of heroism can fit within frameworks of
leadership research such as transactional and transformational leadership
styles. Future research of heroism may focus on three areas.
First, while much research suggests that self-reported characteristics are
quite stable throughout life (Costa & McCrae, 1994), there may be biases in
some of these measures. For example, self-perception theory (Bem, 1972)
states that people assume that they have certain characteristics by observing
their own behavior. It could be that the veterans that we interviewed in this
study simply inferred that they had certain characteristics because they won a
military medal for heroism. Even though we found that third-person
perceptions of hero characteristics were similar to self-reports, third-person

accounts could be similarly biased. A solution to this would be to measure
characteristics of soldiers prior to combat to see if select characteristics led to
medals for heroism. Future research on heroism within the military context
may focus on understanding characteristics of soldiers before combat to see if
systematic similarities and differences can predict heroic behaviors in the
battlefield.
A second area for heroism research would be to use the characteristics
identified here to complete personality inventories of new recruits and to track
their subsequent progress. It is important to note that military medals for
heroism can be given or withheld for any number of given reasons. Although
being awarded a medal for heroism is an imperfect measure of actual heroism,
it is the most accurate we have. Combining our results with a longitudinal
method may help triangulate on further insights.
Last, future research understanding heroism as it relates to leadership may
suggest characteristics that could be sought for leaders in the political and
business sector. For example, do men like Winston Churchill or Rudolf
Giuliani share similar heroic characteristics as the World War II combat
veterans in this study? Would the same hold true for business leaders such as
Jack Welch or Louis Gerstner, Jr. of IBM? Anecdotally, all of these leaders
can be associated with heroic actions within their particular domain. It may be
that future research on leadership in crisis will help better understand these
types of individuals by beginning with the characteristics found in these
results.
Identifying Potential Heroes in Recruitment and Training
We found these heroes exhibited strong levels of personality

characteristics associated with leadership, loyalty, and risk taking. Yet while
these characteristics were shared by all heroes, eager heroes (enlistees)
exhibited higher levels of risk taking, while reluctant heroes (draftees)
exhibited higher levels of loyalty. Furthermore, the traits associated with
heroes more highly related to indicators of transformative leadership rather
than to transactional leadership. These results have implications for leadership
in general and leadership in crisis.
First, leadership may be better understood knowing something about
military heroes. That is, much like military heroes, leaders are asked to
perform under crisis-like conditions. Knowing the personal attributes which
indicate heroic potential may serve better to understand ways in which leaders
(in any capacity) may improve their skills to achieve desired goals when faced
with “combat-like” circumstances.
Second, these findings point to a new area of research. Leadership in crisis
has not yet been explored. Heroism in general – and military heroism
specifically – may provide a context in which some aspects of leadership
scholarship could be better studied. As suggested by this research, military
heroes have systematic characteristics which differentiate them from non-
medal winners (see Table 1). These characteristics may be prototypical of a
great leader who performs well in crises. Thus, the screening, recruitment, and
selection of candidates for leadership positions, which frequently deal with
crises (i.e., police, fire fighters, and rescue workers, military) may benefit from
this research.
Third, this research suggests the possibility of more than one type of hero.
Although, some of the empirical differences between medal winners and non-
medal winners support the more descriptive accounts given in literature, there
are differences. In general, medal winners exhibit more traits that one would
associate with leadership, loyalty, and risk taking. However, medal winners
who were eager to enlist were more likely to have described themselves, prior
to joining the service, as accepting risk and liking excitement compared to
those who were more reluctant to enlist. Thus, heroes may be
multidimensional. Further research is needed to understand what personality
characteristics may exist.
One purpose for conducting this research is to proactively offer guidelines
or suggestions when trying to identify potential heroes in either recruitment or
training. Although this work focuses on military heroes, it may have
implications for other hazardous occupations such as police work, firefighters,
and rescue volunteers. While one known approach to identifying potential
heroes may be to target individuals who have leadership characteristics and are
risk-takers, such an approach could be unnecessarily restrictive. While these
individuals might be ideal targets for any organization, the results of this study
suggest that another valuable profile would be the strong, loyal leader who
may initially appear more cautious or reluctant to perform in risk-laden
environments.
Table 4. Profiling Potential Heroes for Recruitment and Training
Eager Heroes Reluctant Heroes

General Self-disciplined Works well with others

Characteristics Resourceful Makes friends easily
Self-confident Sociable
Adventurous Less self-centered
Flexible Less self-confident
Risk-Taker Respectful of authority
Potentially High school leader Belongs to many
Identifying High energy organizations (a “joiner”)
Characteristics in Athlete Modest athlete (non-
High School Not necessarily superstar)
Seniors exceptional grades Popular but possibly quiet
Potentially Competitive and highly Efficient
Identifying involved No discipline problems
Characteristics in Applies self physically Concerned for squad mates
Basic Training Frequent volunteer welfare
Intelligent risk taker Thinks in terms of team first
Possibly a grand stander Performs well but doesn’t
seek credit
The strength of reluctant heroes may instead rely on loyalty and values
other than a propensity for excitement and risk. For example, heroes who were
more reluctant, were shown to give weight to key values more so than eager
heroes. While recognizing the possibility of reciprocal determinism, it may be
that these key values are diagnostic of heroic potential. Fifty years after
combat a reluctant hero might more greatly value a sense of accomplishment,
self-respect, warm relationships, fun and enjoyment, being well-respected,
having security, being self-fulfilled, and a sense of belonging than did their
eager counterparts.
Unfortunately, the hero who is more reluctant may be in danger of being
overlooked in the recruitment, training, or promotion process. While he or she
is the person who is likely to perform just as heroically as their eager
counterpart, they may not show the same self-centered confidence. Instead
they will be evident by their ability to work well with others and to make
friends easily. During training and beyond, these reluctant heroes are likely to
be concerned for the welfare of team members.
Will all future heroes fit one of these two profiles? Almost certainly not.
What this study does, however, is to broaden the perspective of what type of
person is likely to perform heroic actions. It turn, what this empirical work
may accomplish is to broaden the theoretical and practical applications of
leadership in crisis, which heroism is part.
We have shown that medal winners, or heroes, do indeed tend to be

leaders, loyal, and risk takers. However, we have also argued that while heroes
who are more eager may be the prototype when one thinks of military hero,
the more cautious or reluctant individual may have core values that also
effectively instigate heroic behavior.
All actual heroes are essential men,

And all men possible heroes.
—E.B. Browning
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Chapter 4
DISORGANIZATION OF THE COLLECTIVE

ENVELOPES AND THE BREAKING-IN
OF THE EGO OF THE CHILD
IN THE EXPERIENCE OF WAR
(LEBANON – JULY/AUGUST 2006)
Léla Chikhani-Nacouz1, Hélène Issa2,

and Mounir Chalhoub3

1
Clinical Family Psychology and Pathology,
Lebanese University II (Fanar) – Psychotherapist,
Syndicate of Psychotherapists and Psychoanalysts, Beirut, Lebanon
2
Clinical Psychology at Balamand University - Psychotherapist,
Syndicate of Psychotherapists and Psychoanalysts, Beirut, Lebanon
3
Psychotherapist, Syndicate of Psychotherapists and Psychoanalysts,
BEING LCTC, Centre for Psychotherapy, Beirut, Lebanon
ABSTRACT
The objective of this study is to analyze the effects of the
disorganization of collective envelopes (deficit of social time, of
socialization, of group memory, of a common future, etc.) on the
psychological envelopes supporting the organization of time, space,
thought, memory and dream in the child.
94 Léla Chikhani-Nacouz, Hélène Issa and Mounir Chalhoub
The study proposes that war in itself is not the cause of the child’s
trauma, but rather the destruction of the social envelopes, and in
particular the de-structuring of the symbolic. When the anxiety of the
present is what determines the future, when space-time dimensions are in
chaos, when the social field is fraught with turbulence, what happens to
the child?
Using semi-structured clinical interviews with 30 Lebanese children
aged 9 to 13 years old (who were 6 to 10 years old during the 2006
conflict) exhibiting post-war symptoms, we have analyzed the disruption
of certain collective envelopes, namely, temporality, cultural space and
cross generational encystment.
We were able to observe the following: 1. War time has a particular
rhythm. Explosions replace the clock, noise replaces words. A splitting
occurs between external time (street time) that can no longer constitute a
functional envelope, and internal time (shelter time) that is relegated to a
vegetative state. 2. The space of the Lebanese community is a space of
conflict. The collective memory is fragmented in the absence of
institutions supporting historical archiving. An identity by disavowal is
thus established in the sub-group. The child is literally caught between
two fires: withdrawal into oneself or community splitting. War, coupled
with migration, leads to a loss of the symbolic through mourning and
misapprehension. 3. In the memory of the family, these circumstances
create confusion and lack of differentiation. The child suffering from
social distress becomes set in pathological violence as a form of self-
defense.
The study includes a brief analysis of the Thematic Apperception and
Family Apperception Tests (TAT and FAT) conducted on 30 children as
well as 3 child drawings illustrating their perception of war.
Keywords: communitarian, disavowal, children in war, collective envelopes, identity,

memory, temporal organizers
INTRODUCTION
« Traumatic neurosis is an effraction, an extended breach provoked by a
considerable external energy attacking an unprepared vesicle. » [1:61]
The traumatic event in the individual’s life is a complex inscription; How

about a traumatic event that is experienced by a social group or is generalized
to encompass a whole country, is repetitive and it destroys the collective
envelopes [2]?
Disorganization of the Collective Envelopes ... 95
On the basis of the concept of psychic envelopes of Anzieu [3], we have

conceived the term collective envelopes, which, in a broader sense, refers to
the social construction of past events, to their meaning in the present and their
role in a future vision, to national identity, to the values and traditions shared
by a community and thus creating a system of references. We set out to
examine the multiple ruptures of these envelopes in wartime in order to
understand how they affect the functioning of the child.
When the anguish of the present moment draw the future; when the
dimensions space-time fall over in the chaos; when the social field is a field of
turbulences; when the collective memory is split up and the family memory is
fragmented; what does the child become?
Our hypothesis is that war in itself is not the cause of trauma: it is through
the de-structuring, the de-ritualization or symbolic de-functionalization of
collective envelopes, that it engenders, that war affects the person who lives it.
The damage is caused by the destruction of symbolic foundations and
referential frames provoking a lesion in the living individual. Transitional
object lost, destruction of homes, migration, memorial persecution, etc., war
has generated a rupture in the meaning of social envelopes. This has
repercussions on the individual, a form of effraction and an unthinkable
transgression engendering the trauma.
The aim of this work is to explore - within three years after a war (for
instance in Lebanon [4]) -, the repercussions of the disorganization of

collective envelopes (among which we have chosen: time and space, and the
cultural referential in the case of migration) on the psychic envelopes of 30
children between 9 to 12 years old – who were 6 to 7 years old during the war,
through interviews, TAT and FAT and 3 drawings that serve as illustrations.
1. TIME, SPACE AND NOISES OF WAR

« My mother says that our time is a sick time, and I think that I can feel
how the time is sick. » (Simone, 12 years old)
Our temporal universe, at the origin of the gesture of Chronos, is a

succession of instants. Time [5] is conceivable only in the presence of an
internal and an external defining the rhythm. (Its meaning is internal, a pure
intuition of the self which, together with space, constitutes the only possible
frame for reasoning, and is therefore a basic condition of any experience
[6:79]; time is also determined through the consciousness of the external,

although the processes of the Ics system are timeless [7: 97]).
Rhythms. The relationship to the social time that we conceive as a
function of the Name-of-the-Father, is a relationship mediated by the mother.
It is the mother who organizes the time of the body – duration/interval for
food, sleep, bath, etc., going back and forth, present-absent,-, rhythm on the
basis of temporality-. Such biorhythms, - endogenous mechanism of a cyclic
temporalization -, persist under constant environmental conditions; whereas in
cases of de-synchronization between internal and external rhythm, functional
disturbances of the organism appear. The biorhythms destabilized by war and
its intrusive effects, base their functioning on the chaotic social reality, which
no longer constitutes a protective envelope. The respiratory rhythm and heart
rate are accelerated; the alimentary rhythm, defecation and the circadian
rhythm all are subject to the blind willpower of bombs.
« We had to eat when we were not hungry, and sleep when we were not
sleepy. When we really wanted to sleep, it was never the moment.
Sometimes, I slept standing against my father’s leg or sitting anywhere. » (
Ali, 10 years old)
« My little brother wet himself all the time. Fortunately, I was
constipated, but my heart beat, and beat, I just couldn’t stop it » (Lina, 11
years old)
« I eat nothing during the day. I wake up 2 or 3 times during the night to
eat. I think that it is because of the war, since we ate at night to remain
awake, perhaps so that we could run away before the bombs came. » (Jamal,
12 ans) [8:200]
« Ever since the war, I have trouble breathing. […] My breathing is
“chopped”. » (Khaled, 9 years old)
Marwan, (10 years old), is unable to walk normally since the last war
says his mother: « He runs like a rocket or walks like a turtle and can no
longer move. In any case, he cannot stand still anymore. »
Succession. The articulation of instants as a chronological history that

forms the fabric of time fades away. There are striking instants: an explosion,
home is destroyed, the teddy bear is lost, etc., while other articulated instants
are forgotten. The chronology is lost. The dates that make history are not
coherent anymore.
« I do not know how it happened», says Rita, 13 years old. « I remember

only that I was running and then all of a sudden I arrived in a truck at a
school or a convent. […]. There were other refugees, but I do not remember
what the convent was called. »
« It was before, no after, I had lost my doll » says Sarah, 11 years old,
who had taken refuge in her grandmother’s house. « I don’t know if it is at
my teta’s (grandma’s) or before. »
Time mutilated of the rhythm deviates from its vital social function of
order, transmission and permanence. Disorganized, it is destructured since it is
constituted outside of the subject, and thus loses its symbolic meaning. Words
are of no use anymore. An inescapable and morbid factual replaces the
rhythmic subjectivity, suddenly creating an unthinkable, and ineffable
situation. The materiality of the events outweighs their representativity. The
imaginary is impossible, it is replaced by the expectancy and the
foreshadowing of death (When the factual and the actual prevail,
psychosomatic patients, according to P. Marty et de Cl. Smadja, [9], exhibit a
scleroses in their verbal expression and a poor imagination; these analysts
view this kind of operational thought as an unlinking of the conscious and the
unconscious).
Time de-functionalizes and regresses into an a-symbolic dimension. Only
the present is conjugated. The individual has lost all instinctual representation
of events and is incapable of making plans for the future or remembering the
sequential history of the trauma.
« The first week at school (after the war) was weird. The teacher told us
to talk about the holiday and I had a blank. I did not know anything. » (Abir,
10 years old)
Spatial splitting and noises. To understand the process, let us retrace

some instants that disrupt the acquired rhythm. The time of war divides vital
space into two opposite rhythms: a street time, where battles are being fought
and a shelter time. The external that kills and dies, and the internal of startled
beings hiding in the basements.
« My mother told me that I was going round in circles, I don’t remember

that. She told me that to keep us busy, a neighbor with us in the shelter asked
us what we wanted to be in the future. It seems that the children yelled (we
were around 10 or 11) and I started to go in circles. […] Sometimes, I go to
school but I return to the house by another street without paying attention.
Then again to school (fortunately it is only 5 minutes away from our house).
But I always arrive late. » (Amer, 11 years old)
« We did not know where to start (our game), we were like babies. […]
I like to play, but when I was in the shelter, I did not know how to […] I
could not jump the rope, there wasn’t enough space. » (Farah, 9 years old)
Inside the shelter, men, women and children live following the outside
rhythm; the reality is that of the street. Their rhythms of live depend on what is
outside them, creating a fault.
« They are inside yet outside. The omnipotence of the outside penetrates
them directly through the auditory circuits – explosion of bombs – or is
constructed by radiophonic waves that punctuate time with the number of
projectiles and the number of deaths. Hearing becomes the field of
knowledge and safeguard. The only indicator of the outside. By hearing its
sound, we can tell the size of the projectile, where it was fired from and
where it landed as well as what it destroyed. The space we live in is not the
space that we experience. The space experienced is a space outside oneself,
disintegrated and haunted by the deads. » [10:29].
These sounds that invade the hearing, destroy all rhythms. « A voice is not
assimilated, it is rather incorporated which gives it a function to model our
emptiness » [11:320], as Lacan said in relation to the sound of the shofar at the
exit of the synagogue. But if the shofar means either guilt or forgiveness with
regard to the desire of the Other, what is the meaning of an explosion that fills
the utter silence of speechless people hiding in shelters? Culpability without

forgiveness may be transformed into death. Nothing is the same any more.
Because listening, waiting for death, weighing threat of a blind projectile,
confuses the times of life. But again, being hungry, cold and unable to sleep,
hearing the death of others.
Cries invade the space. Time stands still, space is reduced. The
disorganizing noise replaces the organized sound of words. The existential
question is: Then, what about me? The child has to face death. The desire of
the living to escape this seemingly inevitable end clashes with the acceptance
of letting it come: the threat is too strong, and letting oneself die seems like a
relief. As if in this vegetative and endless waiting in the shelter, the
timelessness of the unconscious anesthetizes all life.
« I wanted to join my cousin, he fought in the war. It's true he's dead but
I have died a thousand times in the cellar. He is a hero, he fought. » (Ghassan,
13 years old).
« I thought dying would have saved me. I asked God: do not let me die,
and sometimes I said I cannot take it anymore, it is better to die, I know it is a
great sin to think like that. Luckily, I am not dead. » (Saydé, 13 years old)
Living in the space-shelter is a return to the cave, the mortifying womb

beyond which there is no hope of salvation. Return to a fetal state perpetuated
immutably in a closed field. To ensure the safety of one’s ego/body requires
isolation from the reality of the outside, which is viewed as a killer. But this
skin, which must be saved, is a skin stripped of its protective and individual
meaning. On the one hand, the brutal rupture with the outside intensifies a
feeling of impotence, on the other hand the shelter-womb provokes a
persecutory pointlessness (a return to the fantasy of the persecutory breast).
There isn’t enough place for the game-I (Jeu-Je), as the girl said. The current
diachronic of inside-outside gives the individual two choices: physical death or
psychic morbidity; life is outside but outside is death; (sur)vival is inside but
inside is not life. The imposed exclusion required in order to save oneself
confronts the individual with the eternal quest, the conscious (operational) is
narrowed down to one constant, that of survival. The body/ego in the shelter is
doubly dissociated, by the occlusion of the reality principle and by reducing
the pleasure principle to the primary needs for survival.
In the family of the cave, the Mother is invested with the power of
survival, while the social Father is disinvested.

The war has ended. Everything is back to order. The children are in their
own home, the lights are turned off, they are going to sleep soon. The
repetitive bad dreams come back to haunt them. Gaby, 10 years old, sees in his
bad dreams airborne bombardments and Fatmeh, 9 years old, sees the walls of
their home decomposing and burying her. Sabbah, 11 years old, sees herself
forgotten in the shelter and dying of hunger; and Ayman, 10 years old, sees
himself hit by a bomb. While Mahmoud, 12 years old, every evening sees the
bridge collapsing (he witnessed its destruction). Anthony, 11 years old, wakes
up several times a night to light up the room with the flashlight that he keeps
under his pillow at all times.
For them, the war is not finished: time has stopped there.
The social field is a space of turmoil, a dangerous field. Houses contain
only dead people, men are killing each other, gunfire fills the air, airplanes,
machine guns, tanks all are in action; war covers the sky and the ground with
smoke and noises. The child uses a black pen in the drawing, which is a sign
of the child’s morbidity, while the concentric scribbles of smoke and dust are
an expression of the chaos that she feels.
Excerpt from the table of disorders manifested by the 30 children [12]
Disorders Number of children

Repetitive nightmares 28
Phobic conduct 8
Behavioral problems 7
Mood disorders 1
Transient hallucinatory episodes 1
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) 2
Panic attacks 2
Violent behavior 9
Restlessness 10
Fear of abandonment 9
Cognitive disorders 1
School failure, learning difficulties 4
Functional destruction leads to a confusion of fundamental categories for

the young girl. For example: the living/the dead (the dead live in the house),
top/bottom (the tank, buildings, the helicopter… give an impression of
layering) inside/outside (only the exterior is in motion, not with life but death,
a paradox in terms).
2. FROM DISAVOWAL TO MIGRATION

« I is in what the other is not. » [13: 6]
If the Ego is constituted as Ego (individualization process), only through

the inherent consciousness of its proper qualities and sense of unity, that is to
say, when its diversity is experienced as an undivided whole, its formation is
completed through the mirror of the Other. This classical psychological theory
leads us to think about the passage from the significance of the Other to the
significance of the Ego. In catching the particular moment when the
detachment occurs, initiating the difference of being, but before the ego is able
to define itself; this gap where the Ego knows that it is not the Other, but is
incapable of accessing its own force; this momentary halt in life while the
desire to live already presupposes life; in this particular moment we can build
an identity by disavowal [13]. A mediated identity in the sense that it requires

continuous mediation of the opposition to the Other, of his negation, without
being a direct identity, inherent to the conscious of the Ego.
Figure 1. War in the street-space viewed by Joanna, 8 years old (drawing).
Unexpectedly absent, and all of the sudden present, this Ego in transit
which can neither blend nor belong, and at the same time cannot be
individualized, is formed on the basis of denial. Disavowal, in terms of a
process, gains a foothold in a context where the psyche can no longer act as
the moderator of what the Ego is, but only as the moderator of what it is not.
The point of equilibrium is confused with the point of non-rupture, without
being a point of emergence. The situation, in which the person finds himself,
causes persecutory ambiguity, pushing him to handle the deficits and the
excesses through the internal mode of violent outbursts or morbid withdrawal.
This feeling may, at any time, regress into a delirium causing an anguishing
scission.
This sense of disavowal felt by a group of people manifests itself as an
internal function, acting as a determining factor in the historical formation of a
social group, intervening at crucial moments of evolution and transformation.
In this manner, the identity of a group or of a community is not built on a
sense of common belonging (historical, geographical, racial, cultural or other),
but rather on a subjective basis developed in a disavowal mode using an
external referential: I am not the other (I am a Lebanese Christian, I am a
Lebanese Shiite, etc. a distinctive and private apposition). In other words, a
group existing in an originally disavowed environment will react in
symptomatizing by denial operations for the similar. The community therefore
develops its identity on the permanence of what differentiates it from the other
that which is not what the other is, while its constituent energy struggles in
vain to fill the space of what it is. The construction of communal identity is
built through a reaction formation to the social whole, creating a collective
psychological field in contrario, by denying the common referential, thus
forming an identity albeit dichotomous and torn apart. The resulting
organization of the collective Ego suffers accordingly and, in its attempt to fill
the gaps, places the individual and the group in an ambiguous, mortified, and
morbid relationship with the space in which he lives. The anguish
of disavowal becomes all of a sudden persecutory, and later becomes
multifaceted [13], projected in multiple fields, the other becoming the
depository of all pains and failures.
(To better situate the identity by disavowal, it would be interesting to

compare it to that of the nomad who doesn’t have a referential; and to that of
the exiled and the migrant who turns his referential of origin into a mythical
referential.)
The Lebanese space is a space of shelter; it is the mythical Lebanon where

various people come to take refuge from persecution, autocracies, banishment,
the desert or poverty. It is the Green Lebanon and the castle built over the
water of the popular songs, « the last bastion of freedom » of the poet [14].
However, today, the desert is being built luxuriously while the autocracies
remain strong, and Lebanon is nothing but a space of conflict. The Lebanese
community is built on an unstable equilibrium. Political identity, state
intervention in spiritual matters, economic liberalization and individualism,

and the personal status of the citizens differs according to their confession and
prevails over the equality of citizens in front of the law [15]. There are
ruptures in the social fabric fragmenting it into smaller groups where the
external group is viewed as a deadly menace. Communal parallelism
exacerbates ignorance of the other, provoking distrust. Clashes between
communities encourage persecution. Brought up in these communities of
disavowal, he is literally caught between two fires: personal identity and
citizenship or communal identity?
(I asked a young boy of 7 years about his nationality, he said:

« Hezbollah ». Another time, a boy of the same age said to me: «Me, I am a
real Lebanese » To my question whether there were any false Lebanese, he
answered: «Yes, all those who are not members of the Lebanese Forces (a
right wing Christian militia group»).
A belligerent and threatening political discourse, indoctrination in some

schools, militia and partisan propaganda, recruitment of children starting from
12-13 years old, the infuriating exploitation of the dead transformed into
martyrs, the persecutory memorials, all of the above only serve as a
springboard for promoting hate.
« I have to grow up to join the fighters. I am already a member of the

party. They are the only ones to defend Lebanon, the members of
Hezbollah! » (Hassoun, 11years old)
« They are all crazy, says Nagib, 13 years old, I will become a dictator
and hang them all to teach them how to destroy buildings and roads. »
Families, whether partisan or fearful, transmit in turn a partial and biased

history. « Lebanon should become a republic for Muslims. My father
explained that to me. » (Ahmad, 11 years old).
« What is the use of explaining democracy to them, they are ignorant. »

(Cyril, 13 years old)
The collective memory is fragmented in the absence of institutions

supporting historical recording. The group viewing itself as the victim of the
other, gets harsher; the endo-group becomes fanatic and autistic. Distorted
multiple histories transmit a partial and traumatic vision of the group’s history.
The symbolic collapses. The sound echo is that of the child who is transformed
into a social distress. Therefore, pathology of violence is settled in the child as

ego defense.
Loss of the symbolic referential in a society of disavowal: example of
war migration. Classically, migration has always been both mourning and
rupture from primordial objects mixed with feelings of nostalgia, gloominess
and dissatisfaction that lead to investing in the past in a painful and mythical
way. Migration allows keeping the resonance of emotional memories linked to
primordial objects and avoiding constant confrontation with the actual reality.
In fact, the loss of these objects rekindles the anguish of separation and the
mechanisms used to deal with it; it is usually accompanied by feelings of guilt
and betrayal of the old objects in relation to which a libidinal disinvestment
takes place requiring a process of mourning.
With regard to the disavowal theory, migration is above all a problematic
of non-investment of new places and objects, presenting a different collective
envelope, and the difficulties of their apprehension with the existing internal
planning. Migration refers to an Other (pre-existing) who is different from
oneself, unknown, dangerous, a threat to the identity, to beliefs and to all that
is acquired, particularly in disavowal communities. (When the adaptation to
the new objects starts to take place, and when the new places start to be
accepted as ego spaces, there is a libidinal withdrawal of the old investment;
the process of mourning is completed through a new investment [16]. The
interruption of libidinal withdrawal creates an investor (an investment in the

imaginary) in the lost object, which is then idealized so as not to be lost. It is
as if, paradoxically, the person has left but has not yet arrived. Therefore, a
transitory state is created of an unaccomplished mourning, in which the
renunciation of the lost object is impossible. Nostalgia allows for just that link
between the lost object and the different components of the Ideal of the Ego.
The nostalgic relation with the lost object is sought for itself, no other object
can fulfill this eternal quest, which creates a feeling of loss of part of the Ego
Ideal [17].
In the nostalgic search for an imaginary past (operatory movement of the
latent process) this idealization, for migrant children, is made on the basis of a
past that is now elsewhere or destroyed. The effect of war is felt, once again,
through the loss of the symbolic, and of the cultural referential as a result of
lack of knowledge.
The words that the children use and that indicate the loss of envelopes,
and the process of mourning, reveal above all a cultural and symbolic
ignorance of this elsewhere. For example, in case of the physical environment:
« Here, the sky and the sea are not of the same color as back home », says Aya
(12 years old). « I do not know the streets here, I go to school by bus, that is
not good. » Pierre (11 years old). The cultural space: the phonetics, the idioms,
the way of being, the humor, the food, the sunrise, the odors, the noises, etc. «
here there is no sea, I used to go to the sea every day with dad who smoked a
water pipe that smelled good. » says Hadi (11 years old); « Here I do not know
when to stand or sit », says Amani (11 years old). The emotional physical
environment: the memories associated with places, the playground where the
children play, the fountain where they drink; and the emotional human
environment: the neighbors, the friends, the grocery store of the corner.
« When I was born, my father planted a walnut tree that I have always
climbed. It has burnt.» says Waël (11 years old). « When I saw my uncle the
grocer, he always told me to pass by his shop after Friday’s prayer to take a
Chocoprince (chocolate bar). » Mazen (10 years old). « Here, I cannot walk on
the street, or go to the grocery store or the baker, my father buys everything
from the supermarket. » Jihad (12 years old. The places for living: the house
that they won’t see again, the rocking chair, the toys: « I had a swing in which
I sat all the time. » Nariman (10 years old). « I do not like the house here. »
Galia (8 years old). Finally, the objects of attachment: an old aunt, a best
friend, a turtle or a transitional object. (not to mention the loss of the father or
the mother which is even more decisive) «Look, this is the picture of Superdog
(a Belgian berger) it is lost or dead because of the war, I can’t live without it. »
Caline (10 years old). « I will never forget my doll, she was a real princess. I
cannot live without her. » Sahar (9 years old). « My mom is not the same here,
do you think she will be like before if we go back. » Souraya (9 years old).
Loss, either by ignorance or mourning, places the child outside the
physical reality and symbolic knowing. This is what changes her potentials for
resilience. Knowledge of primordial objects and of initial places is intrinsic, it
is like the biorhythm, an internal and external conduit of identity, which is part
of the child and which she loses in this unknown elsewhere.
Transgenerational encystment. The more the transgenerational parental
messages, whether said or non-said, are loaded with anguish and fear,
persecution and war trauma, the more vulnerable the child. In this case,
anxious, phobic and depressive pathologies increase. The effraction of the
imaginary by infra verbal messages creates the trauma. This interference
invades the internal. Deception in life, inability to act, illusionary influences;
the traumatic unconscious alliances outweigh the alliances of the desire to live.
The child’s narcissism is affected. At the first sign that reminds her of the war
frame, the encystment spreads in the cells, which was hitherto healthy, and a
truly complex and deceased structure replaces the expected development of the
child. De-objectalization sets in, the secrets confined in the imaginary

encroach upon the reality. The child becomes sick; she is not the talking
subject anymore, but the trauma-holder. The repetition replaces the memory.
Lacan [18], in The Purloined Letter, that always ends up with its intended
recipient, shows that nothing is abolished. Different configurations of objects
and their inter-subjective connections are transposed, projected, and deposited
in the others. They make a series of transmissions, while the tangible letter is
in fact symbolic of what could not be transmitted. It is viewed as a riddle to be
solved, hidden under lock in a place both obvious and obscure, in the no-
meaning.
At the time of the bombardment, Sahira (proper name meaning fairy or
enchantress), 13 years old (PTSD) had the reflex to expose herself to the
bombardments instead of hiding in the shelter. She felt a sudden urge to run
out of the shelter and put herself in danger amid the gunfire and the shelling.
They had to literally tie her to a chair to prevent her from running out. (During
several interviews with the mother, she told us the following facts that explain
the insane behavior of the child and the mother. It was the grand-father of the
child who revealed the facts two days before this last interview, when he
« suddenly realized the importance of the past. »).
In 1946, a young woman of 20 years old was killed in her eighth month of
pregnancy – by mistake they say – while she was hanging out the laundry to
dry. She was hit with a bullet shot by a soldier. The baby girl was saved and
she was called Salima (proper name meaning safe and sound). Salima died in
her turn in 1976, at the beginning of the Lebanese war. She was killed by a
sniper when she was 30 years old. Her daughter, Samia (1966), who was 10
years old at the time of her mother’s death, suffered from terrible nightmares
of killing that stopped only with the birth of her first daughter Souleima
(1986). The child who was subject to phobic crises died in obscure
circumstances when she was only a little over three years old by falling from
the terrace. Sahira (1996) the youngest of Samia’s children (30 years old),
after two boys, suffered from nightmares and panic attacks from as early as the
age of around 2 years old.
The path of the letter is visible. A destiny of death has inflicted the line of
females in the family. Samia wanted to escape this terrible karma, the morbid
trans-generational encystment, and the death that awaited her. She projected
her anxieties onto her daughters as if to oblige destiny to skip a generation.
Thinking that death was inevitable, and since Souleima died, she thought that
it was Sahira’s turn to die next.
(Anecdotal notes: the first names of the females all begin with the letter S
in arabic; their dates of birth all have the number 6, sitta in Arabic, repeating
the letter S again: 1946, death of the grandmother and birth of Salima ; (30
years later) 1976, death of Salima ; (20 years later) 1966, birth of Samia ; (also
20 years later) 1986, birth of Souleima who died in 1989; and finally (10 years
later) 1996, birth of Sahira who in 2006 exposes her self to death).
The encystment in the unconscious that comes from the unconscious of
another is a phantom that is almost impossible to dislodge. Violence of
obscure origin induces behavioral disorders that make it very difficult or even
impossible to achieve self-appropriation.
3. BRIEF ANALYSIS OF TAT AND FAT TESTS

OF 30 CHILDREN
« No place to be a child, growing up in a war zone. » [19]

« Why is there war? Our neighbor is dead. I play with her daughter. I am
very scared. At night the planes are bombarding. They tell me that they are
not, but I can hear them. The noise is so loud that I have to block my ears. »
(Milia, 9 years old)
The experiences of children, of fear and trauma, of the games they play,
act of words that they say, confront us with the emotion of incomprehensible
terror.
The roads are busy now. The children have gone back to school and the
dead have been buried. What remains of the war? A mere date. In the
aftermath of the widespread aggression, nothing is back to what it was.
Nothing can be like before.
Main findings of the tests that were undergone by 30 children
The General Index of Family Dysfunction is moderately high (FAT).

However, the obvious attachment of the subjects to the content and to
describing the details is the sign of the presence of unresolved and avoided
family conflict.
The family indicators (FAT) suggest that the children (22/30) perceive
their mother as the provider of care as well as an agent of stress. However, in
the interview, all children described their mother of before the war and the one
after. Moreover, the father figure is rather deficient (17 children) and
sometimes oppressive with relation to the identification process (9 children).
Additionally, there is the element of narcissistic vulnerability: a fragile Ego at
risk for disturbance. We also note that the children have a high level of
inhibition and avoidance of conflicts.
For most children, the following processes were used in the TAT.
The scotoma of the manifest object is a denial of the aggressiveness
against the self as well as a sign of an ego abraded from castration (24
children). The perception of fine details is a projection of a weighty image of
the elements of war, which have a particular significance for each child (19
children). (We find many fine details in the drawings, for example a brilliant
mountain, a checkered sun, a flying roof, etc.).
The perception of the deteriorating object by the child (8 children) reveals
the underlying perception of the self that is shaken in the foundations of its
identity.
The use of certain crude expressions having an aggressive theme is linked
to a certain mood or to an unbearable aggressive situation and feelings of guilt
related to the war (11 children).
Recalling the bad object (death, 17 children), spatial precisions,
perception alteration, massive projections (recalling the bad object,
persecution theme, arbitrary search for the intentional in a picture, a facial
expression and/or an attitude), the disorganization of identity and object points

of reference (the instability of objects, conflicting roles, spatial disorganization
or the disorganization of logical causality), discourse alteration, all of the
above can be considered as signs of a problematic of persecution due to an
archaic experience, which in this case is the experience of war (21 children).
The introduction of inexistent characters into the picture (15 children) is
an indication of an imaginary potential but also of the capacity to withdraw
from external reality. The processes of Series E that represent the majority of
the results as well as the experience of war could be a sign of the
destabilization of the ego’s capacity to organize its relations with internal and
external objects. In other words, there is a degree of disorganization at the
level of the collective memory, space and time.
Perhaps the war served to reveal what was already there; and as a result of
the deterioration of collective envelopes, became the trigger that unleashed
feelings of fear and restlessness and bad dreams for the children and their
parents as well.
Illustrations
1) Hassan, 11 years old, remembers the explosions, burning cars and the
fugitives. The young boy suffers from hyperactivity since the war and is
having difficulties in succeeding at school. He says he saw « a gutted house»
and since then « emptiness scares him».
The young boy’s drawing expresses his morbidity with the colors of
anxiety (black, brown, and fire-red) and representations of flame, smoke,
destruction and disorder. The collective envelopes are destroyed.
2) Ghinwa, 10 years old, suffers from panic attacks. She saw the neighbors die
and she thinks that war is something "very very scary". Her drawing seems
static, but the fragmentation is indicative of a child in distress.
CONCLUSION
« The traumas caused a metamorphosis of the identity. » [20: 7]
The children’s narcissistic vulnerability, the absence of limits and the

anguish caused by distressing situations, the aggressiveness and the
problematic with the external world causing the anxiety, are all elements that
lead us to conclude that overall children affected by war live in a state of
insecurity that contributes to less than favorable developments in their
evolution.
However, the trauma is not caused only by war itself, but rather by the
incessant destructions and stream of dead people that it engenders. It is the
disorganization of the points of reference, of the collective envelopes, of the
meaning of things, and of the symbolic function of speech. Sometimes, it is the
slight loss of a teddy bear or the horror at seeing corpses all over the road that
causes the trauma, The little child, faced by this horror, can defy the war by
holding onto his teddy bear, but in this case, life suddenly loses its meaning,
and he might as well be lost and die.
Indeed, the reality that children have to endure because of the senseless
violence of adults is merciless.
Today, the situation in Lebanon is calm, but the divisions among

communities and regions are still unresolved and people quickly resort to
arms. With basic disagreement on identity, power, social structure and
everything that constitutes a State, the country is divided. The collective
envelopes are destroyed in a society in distress.
REFERENCES
[1] Laplanche J. (1980), Problématique I. L’angoisse. Paris: Quadrige, 1998
[2] This concept was developed by L. Chikhani-Nacouz and communicated to
the Association of Psychotherapists and Psychoanalysts in Beirut on 3
December 2006; it was the subject of an article published in the journal
“la Revue française de Neuropsychiatrie de l’enfant et de l’adolescent”,
in December 2009, on line, under the title « The incidences of the
destruction of collective envelopes on the ego of the child aged 9 to 13
years », (with the participation of Drieu and Chalhoub).
[3] Anzieu D., (1985), Le Moi-peau, Paris : Dunod, édition revue et
augmentée, 1995.
[4] Liban
July-August 2006: Continuous Israeli shelling of the positions of

Hezbollah, in retaliation for kidnapping Israeli soldiers.
Today, the situation in Lebanon is calm, but the divisions among

communities and regions are still unresolved and people quickly resort to
arms. With basic disagreement on identity, power, social structure and
everything that constitutes a State, the country is divided. The collective
envelopes are destroyed in a society in distress.
[5] The word « temps » in French, which means time, comes from the Indo-
European tem, which means to cut. It indicates a separation between the
internal and the external, the individual and the group.
[6] Kant, E. (1891). « Du temps » in, Œuvres philosophiques I. des premiers
écrits à la « critique de la raison pure. Nlle ed 1980, Paris : Gallimard
[7] Freud S. (1914-15), « L’Inconscient », in : Métapsychologie. Trad. angl.
1943, trad. Fr. Paris: Gallimard, 1994
[8] « […] la négation dite explétive sur laquelle j’ai mis tellement d’accent.
Vous le trouvez en français dans la phrase je crains qu’il ne vienne, que
vous dites quand ce que vous craignez, c’est qu’il vienne. Ce ne, il ne
suffit pas de le qualifier de discordantiel, parce qu’il marque la
discordance qu’il y a entre ma crainte, puisque je crains qu’il vienne, et
mon espoir, car j’espère qu’il ne viendra pas. Pour ma part, je n’y trouve
rien de moins que la trace signifiante de ce que j’appelle le sujet de
l’énonciation, distinct du sujet de l’énoncé. » (LACAN J. (1962-1963),
« Entre jouissance et désir. Aphorismes sur l’amour. » in Le séminaire.
Livre X. L’Angoisse. Texte établi par Jacques-Alain MILLER, Paris : éd.

Du Seuil, 2004, pp.199-212
[9] SMADJA Cl. (1998), « Le fonctionnement opératoire dans la pratique
psychanalytique » in : Revue française de psychanalyse n° 5
[10] CHIKHANI-NAOUZ L. (1996) « Temps et espaces de guerre. » in
Confluences Méditerranée No 17. Paris : L’Harmattan, pp.27 to 37.
[11] LACAN J. (1962-1963), « De l’objet petit a. Ce qui entre par l’oreille. »,
in Le séminaire. Livre X. L’Angoisse. Text established by Jacques-Alain
MILLER, Paris : Ed. Du Seuil, 2004, pp. 309-322.
« Nous retrouvons mon instrument de l’autre jour, le chofar de la
synagogue, et sa musique. Mais est-ce bien une musique que cette quinte
élémentaire, cet écart de quinte qui est le sien ? N’est-ce pas plutôt ce qui
donne son sens à la possibilité qu’un instant il puisse être le substitut de la
parole, arrachant puissamment notre oreille à toutes ses harmonies
coutumières ? Il modèle le lieu de notre angoisse, mais observons-le, après
seulement que le désir de l’autre a pris forme de commandement » (320).
[12] Established by Mounir CHALHOUB
[13] CHIKHANI-NAOUZ, L. (1995), conference given at the University Jean

Monet of Bari (Italy), « L’identité par défaillance, ou la non appartenance
des Chrétiens arabes. », april 1996.
[14] TUENI N. (19), Vingt poèmes pour un amour, Dar-el-Nahar 1996.
[15] Reference is made to the following: Georges CORM, (1991),
Contribution à l’étude des sociétés multiconfessionnelles. Effets socio-
juridiques et politiques du pluralisme religieux, Paris, LGDT. Antoine
Fattal, (1958), Le statut légal des non-musulmans en pays d’Islam,
Beyrouth. Edmond RABBAT, (1986), La formation historique du Liban
politique et constitutionnel, Beyrouth, Lib. Orientale (Publ. de l’Université
Libanaise). Jean-Pierre Valognes, (1994), Vie et Mort des Chrétiens
d’Orient, France, Fayard. Lament et Anny CHAMBRY (1984), Politique
et minorité au Proche-Orient, les raisons d’une explosion, Paris,
Maisonneuve et Larose. Youssef Courbage et Philippe Fargues, (1992),
Chrétiens et juifs dans l’Islam Arabe et turc, Paris, Fayard. A. Beydoun,
(1994), Identité confessionnelle et temps social chez les historiens libanais
contemporains, Beyrouth : Dar-el-Nahda.
[16] Freud S. (1917), « Deuil et mélancolie », in Métapsychologie, Paris :
Gallimard, 1976.
[17] Geahchan D. (1968), « Deuil et nostalgie », in Revue Française de
Psychanalyse, No 32, pp. 39-65.
[18] Lacan J. (1965-1966), « La lettre volée » in Écrits I. Paris : Seuil, (coll.

« Points »), 1966.
[19] Garbarino, J., Kostelny, K. & Dubrow, N. (1991). No place to be a child,
growing up in a war zone. Lexington, MA : Lexington Books.
[20] Nathan T. (1986), « trauma et mémoire », in Nouvelle revue
d’ethnopsychiatrie no 6 Paris: Revue d’ethnopsychiatrie.
Chapter 5
JEWISH CHILDREN HIDDEN IN FRANCE

BETWEEN 1940 AND 1944:
THEIR PSYCHIC CONSTRUCTION
Marion Feldman
Maître de Conférences in Psychology in Paris Descartes University,
Clinical Psychologist in a Preventive Family Crèche, Inserm,
Paris, France
ABSTRACT
In 1991, the first international meeting of Jewish children hidden in
Europe during World War II is organized in New York. Before this event,
the psychology literature use to talk about survivors, mainly adults
survivors of the Holocaust. A few studies concerning children survivors
of the Holocaust, and more specifically hidden children appeared only in
the 90’, forty seven years after the Liberation. The aim of this chapter is
to show the impact of collective history on individual history: the
experience of Jewish children hidden in France and who stayed in France
following Liberation. A series of semi-structured interviews on personal
and psychological history was conducted with 35 Jewish people, (21
women, 14 men; mean age of 74.9 years, range: 65-82 years), living in
France and who had been hidden between 1940 and 1944 during the
Occupation in France. Using a qualitative methodology, I identify

E-mail: [email protected]
116 Marion Feldman
specific traumas, intra- and inter-generational family disorders and

affiliation disturbances, and, alongside this, protective factors and ways
of coping with the trauma. This study considers the specific and complex
situation of the Jewish children hidden in France, who presents specific
features in their psychic construction.
INTRODUCTION
The psychology literature about the experience of Jewish children hidden

during the Occupation is recent, and mainly American and Israeli (Dwork,
1991; Fogelman, 1993; Tec, 1993). Most articles were written after 1991 when
the first international meeting of “hidden children” occurred in New York.
This took place forty-seven years after the Liberation: about 2 000 former
“hidden children”, most of them now grandparents, gathered on this occasion.
The experience of child survivors of the Holocaust has only been taken
into account since the 1980s (Krell, 1985; Kestenberg, 1985; Moskowitz,
1985; Hogman, 1985; Gampel, 1988), long after the trauma of adult survivors
had been recognized and studied. Even though the literature is mainly
American and Israeli, the first studies published were European (Freud, 1954;
Keilson, 1979).
European psychology literature on the subject of hidden children is sparse,

and most is the work of Dutch authors (Groen-Prakken, 1995; Reijser, 1995;
Halberstadt-Freud, 1995; Evers-Emden, 2007).
There has been no study of the experience of Jewish children hidden in
France, which is surprising since it was in France that the largest numbers of
Jewish children were saved: more than 80% of the Jewish children under 17 in
1940 survived the Holocaust, while on the scale of Europe less than 10% of
the Jewish children survived (Klarsfeld, 1994, p.9).
For the present research, the viewpoint adopted was the psychology and
psychopathology of the child (Feldman, 2009; Feldman, Taïeb, Moro, 2010).
The aim was to try to determine how they had constructed themselves and to
show the impact of collective history on individual history.
My main hypothesis was as follows: the Jewish children hidden in
France experienced a series of traumatic events that altered the process of
their development, and that there are traces of this sixty years on. Their
experience differs from that of the children who survived the Holocaust
and experienced the concentration camps. For the definition of trauma, I
referred to the definition by Terr (1991) who refers to Type II trauma. This
Jewish Children Hidden in France between 1940 and 1944 117
author distinguishes the effects of a single traumatic event, which she terms
Type I trauma, from the effects of a traumatic event that lasts over time and
may be repeated (type II).
I sought to interview individuals born in France to migrant parents, i.e.
considered as foreign Jews as early as 1940 by the Vichy regime. My inclusion
criteria was as follows: subjects born between 1929 and 1944 (the period
determined by Krell, 1985) in France to foreign parents, hidden in France, and
having remained in France after the Liberation. Subjects considered to be
“hidden children” for the present study were thus subjects who had not
experienced internment camps: they were concealed with or without their
parents so as to escape arrest. They were either “visible” or “invisible”
(Dwork, 1991), i.e. hidden in a closed space and not visible, or, like the
majority of cases in France, hidden under a false identity, and hence “visible”
in other.
35 research interviews were conducted with “hidden children”, ten of
them contacted through the French association “Enfants cachés: 1940-1944”1,
the rest through a more informal network. The latter were addressed to my by
people I know, or I met them in the context of my work.
At the time of the interviews, conducted in 2006 and 2007, the youngest
respondent was 65 and the oldest 82. The mean age of respondents was 74.9.
Using a semi-directive interview design, I asked each person to recount
the events they had been through. The questions concerned family history and
aimed to go as far back as possible into the past. I thought it was important to
trace back the family history: whether they lived in cities, in the countryside. I
also enquired about the difficulties relating to changes in family, language,
religion, and about having to hide or live under a borrowed identity. My idea
was to highlight their links to other people, to objects, as well as the personal
itinerary of each person within their family and collective history. I asked
them to name places, communities, the rituals carried out and the objects they
used.
The decision was made to conduct a single interview. The mean duration
of interviews was three hours. The shortest lasted 45 minutes, the longest six
hours. I did conduct all the interviews. I transcribed the interviews in full. The
35 subjects gave their consent to participate in this research, and for the tape-
recording of their narratives. All data was rendered anonymous2.
1
Created in 1992.
2
The French verbatim has been freely translated to provide information on content and style.
118 Marion Feldman
The method of analysis used Devereux's “complementarist” approach

(1967) so as to obtain the multi perspective: psychopathological, historical and
anthropological.
Across the 35 narratives, in all interviews I identified three recurrent
themes. The first axis is made up of vulnerability factors: damage to filiation
and affiliation links, loss, fright, humiliation, ill-treatment, disappearances and
silences. The second axis concerns the consequences of the accumulation of
trauma: affiliation, identity and family disorders. The third axis groups
competence factors: protection factors and coping. Protection factors depend
on the child’s personality and on the circumstances of his/her life before,
during and after the persecutions. The notion of coping covers life choices, and
the constraints linked to new affiliations.
1. VULNERABILITY FACTORS
Damage to filiation and affiliation links. This population was
vulnerable even before the persecutions started in France, because of
their Jewish migrant status. The respondents encountered in the course
of this research, were all sons or daughters of migrants. For their
parents, coming to France was a way of fleeing the pogroms, anti-
Semitic persecutions that occurred in Eastern Europe and Poland in

particular. But fleeing also meant leaving their family and familiar
surroundings. Given the context, this departure was for some coloured
with anxiety, since any return to the home country was uncertain. At the
same time, coming to France meant settling in the “country of human rights”,
in reference to the fact that France was the first country to declare the
emancipation of the Jews (in 1791).
For these children home became a dual, two-sided place. There was the
inside world, that of the parents, and the outside world, which was represented
by school. For example, the inside world was that of the Yiddish language,
sometimes mixed with other languages: French, but also Polish, Russian,
Jewish-Spanish…
With the start of the persecutions, threats were gradually building up.
Thus some respondents (the older ones) described a living space that was
reducing day by day. They talked about anti-Semite insults; these early threats
were, in most of the families, denied or minimised. All felt protected by the
French political establishment. For many families, no likelihood of persecution
was envisaged, or even imaginable.
Then came the disappearance of the fathers: some left to enlist in the
army, but the majority were arrested. Thus the first damage to the filiation link
took the form of the arrest of the foreign Jewish fathers, when summoned to
the police commissariat on receiving the “green paper”3. The arrest of the
fathers in 1941 rendered filial inscription vulnerable. Maurice had very precise
memories of this, and the disappearance upset the family balance. There was
similar destabilisation in the families of Solange or Adèle, even if they were
too young to remember it, since they were born in 1941. The mothers
remained on their own. And they had to take charge of their families alone.
Further damage to the filiation link occurred in 1942, the year when the
“final solution” was decided upon, with the arrest of families, mothers and
children. This process reached a peak with the “Vel d'Hiv” roundup on July
16th and 17th 1942. Madeleine told how when the Gestapo arrived the
neighbours with whom she was at the time hid her in a rabbit hutch. In these
moments the filiation and affiliation and their interactions were again
damaged: separation was the only possible choice for survival. From then on,
to be protected, the children could no longer be Jewish (damage to affiliation
links), and thus could no longer be their parents' children (damage to filiation
links). The changes in family name, first name and religion were part of this
metamorphosis.
Loss derived mainly from separations, discontinuities, privations and
disappearances. The separations were often abrupt, both from the parents
and from the familiar environment, from landmarks, and from the
cultural belonging group. Nicole, born in 1941, stayed with her family
throughout the war, but her experience was characterised, among other
things, by constant displacement and change in geographical setting. The
same was true for Madeleine who did not leave her parents. Separation, for
the 33 other interviewees, was separation from the parents and from their
familiar environment (family, language, religion, ways of doing things). Age
is of course a determining factor in the experience of each (Durst,
2003). Separations were difficult, but so were the reunions. Dominique
was five years old when his mother came to fetch him in 1944; he did not
recognise her.
Periods of fright were detectable in most of the narratives. They frequently
corresponded to particular dates or even precise moments. For Régine it was a
3
Summons issued 14th May 1941 to foreign Jews notifying that they were to go to the local
police commissariat for their situation “to be examined”. This summons was followed by
internment.
120 Marion Feldman
German soldier stopping her to ask for her parents' address. For Dominique it
was the day he was separated from his parents. For Adèle it was the attempt to
arrest her, her sister and her mother on July 16th 1942. Fears were thus
numerous and multiform. And there were also the fears linked to being
“fostered” by families that ill-treated them: some of them recounted that
experience.
During the persecutions, children were exposed to discontinuity,
deprivation, humiliation, sometimes ill-treatment. During the time when they
were hidden, in addition to being removed from their familiar backgrounds,
these children had to remain silent and pretend that whatever life they had had
before had never existed, no matter how old they were. Among the
interviewees encountered, only 5 of the 35 talked of kindly host families.
Roseline (born in 1935) was separated from her mother and placed with two
women who ill treated her: she was poorly fed, punished, beaten “with
bunches of sticks”. Régine, born in 1936 remembered nothing, but the memory
of sexual abuse returned in the course of a psychiatric hospitalisation at the
age of 20. Odile, born in 1938, was the object of mockery from the boys in the
foster family.
The “disappearances” came to light after the war – parents and other
family members. There had been no talking about these disappearances, and
there was no trace of the people concerned. The word was disappearance until
1978, when Klarsfeld published his book. But when the “Mémorial de la
Déportation des Juifs de France” was published, these “hidden children” were
already adults. Thus as children they had to found their self-construction on
these “disappearances”. After the persecutions, at the Liberation, on top of
having been hidden, they became orphans, or else the children of survivors of
the Holocaust. They were then exposed once more, this time to the trauma and
non-resolved mourning of the adults they were living with, and to the non-
recognition of this by French society at large. Yvette, born in 1928 said “The
Liberation was the start of Hell”. Paulette, born, in 1936, said “the war is over,
but mine isn't. My war isn't over”. Nicole and Solange, both born in 1941, did
not want to know.
Silences were pregnant with meaning at different periods: during the
persecutions, after the Liberation, and still today. During the persecutions, first
of all, the issue was to remain silent and keep secrets. The danger was great,
and the trauma of shifting to another identity and separation from the family
was compounded by the need to keep silent. In some cases, silence was
associated with the shame of physical or sexual abuse, as described by Odile
and Roseline.
These children had integrated the fact that to talk meant the threat of
denunciation and therefore death. The children also had to deal with the
silence concerning what had become of the other members of their families.
They were there, on their own, with no news of siblings or parents.
They were also without information on the exterminations carried out by
the Nazis during the period. There was also silence concerning the other
children in the same family, Christian institution, or village. They did not
know the other children's identities, since silence was essential for their
survival. After the war, there was first of all the silence of the families. The
youngest did not want to hear the stories that the adults had to tell. On the
other side the adults, who had lost children or members of their families in the
camps, were reluctant to listen to their surviving children's accounts of their
experiences, and this was true for all the families of our interviewees.
2. CONSEQUENCES OF TRAUMA
Through these narratives, I can detect identity and affiliation disruption on
a considerable scale. Thus “hidden children” present specific symptoms. These
symptoms are related to psychological breakdown, to the fact of being
survivors, to the damage to affiliation links, to losses and impossible
mourning.
They are reinforced by silence. Certain disturbances are probably linked to
a psychic breach. Bernadette, born in 1937, remembered nothing before 1947.
Gisèle, born in 1938, said she was often confused about time and space. I also
observed hyper vigilance, sleep disorders, repression of emotions, splitting,
hyperactivity. These signs are connected with the survival period. Another
impression that emerged was that of never feeling in their right place. In
addition to isolation, there was the feeling of never being understood, of
always lacking something. These pathological signs can be linked to damage
to filiation and affiliation. And all this is aggravated by loss, impossible
mourning, and mutism reflecting their mental distress.
2.1. Intra- and Inter-Generational Family Disorders
First of all there was the difficult, sometimes impossible, reunion with
the parents after the war. Children and parents had hoped they would see
each other again, there was idealisation on both sides, leading to
122 Marion Feldman
disappointment. 13 were reunited with both parents, 8 were orphaned, and

for the 14 remaining one parent had survived. Some parents were
concentration camp survivors; others had lived underground and had
been humiliated. The reunion proved impossible in some cases, going
sometimes as far as physical and/or psychological violence. The
children’s trauma was denied, and even more so the silence that had
isolated them. In some cases this resulted in ill-treatment because the
parents couldn’t bear their children’s urge to live. After the war
“hidden children” became children of survivors: they then cumulated
their own trauma with that of their parents. Simone's father survived
Auschwitz. After experiencing the absurd and the inhuman conditions
of internment with selections, death, ill treatment, violence and torture.
The war was still going on for him, and the first targets were his
daughters. Roseline's father also returned from the camps. Unlike
Simone's father, the violence was not direct but was enacted in a new
family configuration, since he remarried with a woman who had lost her
husband in deportation; he did not appear to be mentally available for his
children. This new setting led to serious neglect of his daughter's needs, since
he gave his new wife a maternal role that she did not take on. Maurice's
mother also returned from the camps in 1945. He was very affected by the
physical changes in his mother. He described feeling ashamed of his mother,
her behaviour, and her ways with people. For Dominique, Adèle, and Odile,
their parents had not been deported, but the “psychological” violence was
present in the way in which the parents had to cope in the post-war period with
their children, and the task of forgetting what had happened. Concerning
siblings, I identified a breakdown of the family sub-system. Brothers and
sisters had often been hidden separately, because it was safer. Some, however,
stayed with the same family. They experienced events differently, depending
on their age and on circumstances. The symptoms of some amplified those of
others.
Conflicts between siblings are still running: each had his/her own
version of the story, which depended on the defence mechanisms of
each. Odette said she was in conflict with her brother and did not want to
talk about him. Adèle had not told her sister that she had applied
for an allowance as a “hidden child”. In two other instances, the siblings
were with the same family, but the role of the elder child was
different. Odette's elder brother, in contrast, appeared not to have taken
much notice of her, and it was she who, although young, played a
protective role towards him. At the same time, the consequences of these
inter-sibling relationships are similar: the two elder children had refused to
talk about their past.
Communication problems of “hidden children” with their own children
are important. Among the 35 respondents, 34 said they were not understood by
their own children. Josiane's two daughters had no contact with their mother.
Maurice's three children were refusing to see him.
3. PROTECTIVE FACTORS
One of the first protection factors is the security of the early
relationship. For instance Irène and Danièle, born in 1935 and 1932,
said they lived in a closely-knit family before the war. A second
protective factor is the encounter with a “caregiver”, this kindly attachment
figure who takes care of the child emotionally, ensuring continuity after
the parents. The “caregiver” in this sense, is a kind of protective filter
acting like a mother. The person who took in Gérard in the Sarthe was
like a mother to him. A third protective factor is protection via the siblings.
Roseline owed her protection to the presence of her sisters in the face
of the humiliation inflicted by the foster family, and later in the face
of her mother-in-law. Adèle owed her protection to her older sister whom she
called “mother”, although she was only six years her senior. Nature,
the countryside, plants, and animals also acted as resilience tutors for some
children. Finally, a last protective factor is a reassuring environment. It
can be the community. The children’s home in some cases allowed the
children to develop a narcissistic basis which helped them construct and
see themselves as beings with a future. Children’s homes also enabled
the creation of a sound network of friendships, similar to sibling relationships
within a family. This was true for Louis, born in 1930, Gilberte, born in
1932 and Maurice, born in 1934. Through their children's home, they
reconstructed genuine friendly bonds that still hold today.
3.1. Coping
I identified a creative force, which derives from a dynamic process of

affiliations: plans to emigrate to Israel, the search for solutions via
psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, via membership of groups, or via creation
and testimony.
124 Marion Feldman
The ever-present need to belong to a group is shared by all the people

I interviewed. 5 of them encountered freemasonry. 2 of the people had
joined the Evangelist Church. However, one of these 2 finally left the
group, following embezzlement by the leader. 3 others found a way to
themselves through Buddhism. One found the relief she was looking for
by joining a “prayer group” at the dojo. One person became Protestant.
6 remained attached to Catholicism, although still feeling themselves to
be Jewish.
Régine had tried a kibbutz in Israël, possibly to find there what she had
experienced in the rural environment of the Sarthe. The same occurred for 4
others. They stayed in Israel for periods ranging from a few months to two
years. All the interviewees said they returned disappointed, not having found
anchorage in this new country. It can be noted that among their children, eight
accomplished their Alyah [5], thus “achieving what [their] parents had not
achieved”.
Among the 35 people, 12 had asserted their Jewish identity through
different actions. For some it was a choice they made, others were forced to do
so, for instance by a Sephardim spouse from North Africa. The integration of
these Jewish rites is a real life force. Certain respondents, while married to a
Sephardim Jew, accepted these rites regardless of the tensions they might
generate within the marriage. Although I did not ask every person interviewed,
some of them expressed the wish to be buried in the Jewish part of a cemetery.
Many were not regularly practising Jews; however they were Jewish and felt
they belonged to the group.
22 of the people I met had undergone therapy. While some of them had
tried it and then gave up fairly quickly, others remained engaged in the process
for several years. With regard to psychiatry, all of them had taken medication,
tranquilizers or antidepressants, either over a long time or occasionally. But
psychoanalysis and psychiatry are both affiliations. They are theories governed
by laws, rules and precise mechanisms. Some people adapt to psychiatry but
cannot undergo psychotherapy successfully.
The act of creating, through testimony and, in a more elaborate way,
through writing, is a way of metabolizing the elements of the trauma. A large
number of the interviewees had agreed to testify and to take part in support
groups set up by the “Enfants cachés: 1940-1944” association. Régine had
participated regularly in commemorations. 15 interviewees had been members
of support groups, and 4 had written their family histories.
3.2. “Exposed” Children
The “hidden children” were exposed to a process in which they lost their
cultural identity (Feldman and Moro, 2008). There are two shifts in this
phenomenon: the first one took the children from their familiar universe into a
strange one, often terrifying (Feldman, 2006), when they went into hiding. The
second shift then took them away from this universe to which they had grown
accustomed, back into their old universe, now strange to them, when the
persecutions were over and they no longer needed to hide. When their parents
came to collect them, these “hidden children” did not recognize their parents,
some spoke French dialects, they had a different first name, sometimes a
different last name, and in some cases a new religion. The loss of the cultural
identity is in fact a failed, unfinished acculturation experience (acculturation
being an encounter between two worlds). It causes major narcissistic damage.
The process through which these children progressed between 1942 and 1945
has to do with de-filiation in order to re-affiliate, but the re-affiliation is not
complete and thus the person remains “open”. At the time of the Liberation,
they were once again rendered vulnerable, because they then experienced the
trauma and the impossible mourning processes of the adults in their
surrounding world. The common denominator of all these situations shows up
in the reunion with the parents, always difficult, sometimes even impossible.
The separation was long, and even longer for children, who do not have the
same perception of time. The youngest had sometimes forgotten their parents,
while the older ones had hoped fervently for their return. On their side, the
parents had experienced the frustration of not being with their children, of not
seeing them grow up, and the children too had changed. The violence, or the
extreme tensions of the aftermath of the war were linked to the foregoing
experience of permanent threat of death, the conditions of their survival,
separation, and hopes on either side that were not met by reality. In these post-
war reunions, the children discovered that they were not the only ones who
had suffered. They discovered what had happened to their close family, and
what they had gone through. They were shocked to learn of the existence of
the death camps. The stories were so dramatic that it seemed that their own
experience as hidden children paled into insignificance. Thus their own stories
were silenced. And from this silence arose guilt.
In the present instance, these Jewish children were hidden to escape the
threat of death. They were exposed to and confronted with the unknown,
126 Marion Feldman
privations, sometimes humiliation and silences. By way of their status as

Jewish migrants and “hidden children”, they were exposed threefold, since
they were vulnerable even before persecutions started in France, vulnerable on
account of the privations, and vulnerable because their suffering was not taken
into account.
Several studies have shown that migrants’ children are vulnerable and
belong to a high-risk group. At the same time, the onset of the persecutions
was accompanied by a belief on the part of the Jewish families who had fled
the pogroms in Eastern Europe that France was bound to be protective.
“Hidden children” were also exposed to considerable disturbances in the
family and repercussions in the following generation. Gampel (2003) invented
the concept of “radioactive transmission”.
3.3. A Singular Situation
A specific feature of the “hidden children” is that they were not survivors
of the Holocaust who had gone through the ordeal of the concentration camps.
These were the “hidden children”, and once in hiding were no longer
denounced as being Jewish: their survival was “miraculous”. During the
interviews, this topic kept coming back like a leitmotiv: “I was lucky” to be
alive, “Why me? How could this miracle happen to me?” It is a question that
they had all tried to answer in their own ways. The admirable, extraordinary
fact was actually being alive, while so many others were dead. This miracle is
identifiable in two ways in the narratives. It can often be spotted through a
precise element: a date, a time, a particular circumstance. At this very moment,
the miracle occurred simultaneously with fright or great fear. But it can also be
a more “diffuse” miracle, consisting in the very fact of having been hidden and
having concealed their identity.
3.4. Competence of These Children and Adults
Results show the competence that the children possessed in finding

resources liable to protect them: the presence of a brother or sister, the
kindliness of a caregiver, or the presence of an animal. Regarding solutions
and coping skills, these children grew up, and they are alive today. Their
traumatic childhood led them to develop coping skills, but it also forced them
to make life choices that would enable life impulses – meaning impulses for
self-preservation (Laplanche and Pontalis, 1967, p.378) – to take over from

death impulses – meaning impulses for aggression and destruction. Some of
them became members of groups. For these former hidden children choosing
these affiliations is obviously a way of reconstructing themselves. It is an
attempt to re-“build” or “self-beget” one’s own person. As “hidden children”
lost their cultural identity, they joined these different groups in order to make
up for a gap.
The Israel experience is also an attempt to re-affiliate. For those who tried
living in a kibbutz, it was an attempt to return to the rural environment they
had known during the war. But this experience did not succeed, because of the
gap between Israeli ideology and the expectations of these “hidden children”
as Holocaust survivors.
Most of the interviewees had the experience of participation in a support
group set up by the association “Enfants cachés: 1940-1944”. When I asked
them whether these groups had helped them, they mentioned relief based on
the feeling of belonging to a group. Many of these people had been very lonely
for over fifty years, and now they were no longer alone. It seems that
belonging to a peer group is a fundamental active element within these
different support group structures. Some of them accomplished fundamental
actions during or after this group therapy work, which they might never have
done without the association, or at least without the feeling of finally
belonging to a group. Some wrote down their story, took part in

commemorations, or gave talks in schools.
During forty-seven years, they did not feel they had been understood by
their parents, nor by society. They never had a sense of belonging to the group
of survivors, or of survivors’ children. Yet “hidden children” are indeed
surviving children. To be finally recognized as such, however, they had to wait
until the New-York meeting of 1991. Between 1945 and 1991, there was a
latent period during which they were waiting for recognition. Coping
strategies appear to target their exposure, and also the process of de-culturation
that they experienced. The step to join the community (in the form of groups
and associations) is the sign of an attempt to reunite two split parts: the “dual
inside” and the outside.
CONCLUSION
The exploration of the singular experience of Jewish children hidden
during World War II in France shows the impact of collective history on the
128 Marion Feldman
construction of the individual. Still today, many of the “hidden children” are
still in the grips of the trauma endured, and some seem to have handed it on to
the next generation. France was indeed a “safe” country, and at the same time
it held a threat. The hidden Jewish children constructed themselves in an
ambivalent mode, and this had an effect on their modes of attachment, because
of the shifts between protection and threat.
Although most of them wondered about leaving the country – mostly to
Israel, few actually left after the Liberation, because of the risk this involved
for their feeling of security. In addition, France was not a comfortable refuge
for their surviving parents, nor did it assist in the mourning for lost parents.
This attitude on the part of France did not enable these children to construct
stable bonds liable to ensure inner security and enable (re)construction in the
best possible way. This absence of inner security leads to a lack of mental
“propping” (anaclisis) once the child becomes an adult, compounded by the
lack of any security-generating environment. The specific psychopathology of
this population lies mainly in narcissistic failure and in a lack of self-esteem
which is partly the result of this relational mode.
Yet the problem is still present today: in France, there is still silence and,
in a way, everybody sustains it. It is only in 1995 –forty-seven years after the
Liberation, that the French President recognized the responsibility of France in
the collaboration with the Nazis. Silence has left marks, on individual level,
but above all on collective level. Even though an organised group now exists,
and a number of provisions have been set up, one cannot help noticing that the
silence endures.
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INDEX
antiretrovirals, 48
A anxiety, viii, 7, 8, 9, 47, 69, 94, 110, 118
Argentina, 32
abuse, 6, 120
armed conflict, vii, 33, 34, 35, 38, 41, 44,
access, 41, 55, 57
45, 56, 57, 58
accommodation, 42, 43
armed forces, 7
accountability, 58
arousal, 91
acculturation, 125
arrest, 117, 119, 120
action research, 12, 29
articulation, 96
adaptability, 70, 75
assessment, 34, 38, 59, 60, 61
adaptation, 28, 104

assessment procedures, 59, 61
administrators, 47
atmosphere, 2
adults, ix, 2, 6, 7, 9, 15, 16, 29, 48, 111,
atrocities, 36
115, 120, 121, 125
attachment, 105, 108, 123, 128
Africa, 60, 124
attitudes, 4, 18, 84, 90
age, ix, 7, 10, 15, 30, 39, 44, 48, 50, 103,
authenticity, 8
106, 115, 117, 120, 122
authoritarianism, 30
agencies, viii, 34, 41, 44, 52, 53, 57
authorities, 48
aggression, 9, 11, 21, 107, 127
authority, 20, 28, 30, 87
aggressive behavior, 21
avoidance, 52, 108
aggressiveness, 66, 108, 110
awareness, 2, 13, 30, 40
agriculture, 53
AIDS, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 56, 59, 60
alertness, 52 B
alienation, 7, 8
altruistic behavior, 10 background information, 35
American Psychological Association, 89 base, 16, 41, 96
anatomy, 90 basic needs, 18, 51
anchorage, 124 behavioral aspects, 90
anger, 9, 11, 19, 23, 44, 51 behavioral disorders, 107
antidepressants, 124 behaviors, 64, 65, 85
132 Index
beneficiaries, 43, 52, 55, 56, 57, 58 classroom, 20, 25, 30

benefits, 11, 30, 52 clients, 48
biorhythm, 105 clinical psychology, 93
blindness, 73 closure, 39, 43
blood, 2 coding, 63
bonds, 123, 128 cognitive reaction, 11
brain, 21, 55 collaboration, 128
breakdown, 44, 45, 49, 121, 122 color, 14, 18, 105
breathing, 96 communication, 71
brothers, 69, 71 communities, 3, 36, 38, 51, 54, 103, 104,
Buddhism, 124 111, 117
bureaucracy, 37 community, 54, 58, 94, 95, 102, 103, 123,
businesses, 54 127
compensation, 47
competition, 43
C competitors, 43
compilation, vii
candidates, 86 complexity, 4, 43, 45
caregivers, 38 comprehension, 13
cash, 59 computer, 79, 84
castration, 108 conception, 31
causality, 65, 108 conciliation, 29
challenges, 8, 51, 52, 56 conference, 36
chaos, viii, 94, 95, 100 confession, 103
character traits, 67
confidentiality, 15
Chicago, 32 configuration, 122
chicken, 25 conflict, vii, viii, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14,
childhood, 126 16, 18, 20, 23, 24, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38,
children, vii, viii, ix, 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 40, 44, 45, 49, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60,
12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 61, 94, 103, 108, 122
25, 26, 29, 30, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, conflict resolution, 9
43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, conflict zone, vii, 33, 34, 52, 53, 55
55, 56, 57, 58, 94, 95, 98, 99, 100, 103, confrontation, 104
104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, consciousness, 12, 96, 100
115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, consent, 15, 117
123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128 consolidation, 25
Chile, 6, 11 Constitution, 36
cholera, 39 construction, vii, ix, 11, 95, 102, 116, 120,
Christianity, 35 128
circadian rhythm, 96 control measures, 57
cities, 117 conversations, 11
citizens, 58, 103 cooperative learning, 11
citizenship, 103 correlation, 90
civil society, 3 correlations, 65
civil war, 35, 58 cost, 13, 67, 71
clarity, 34, 47
Index 133
cough, 45 distress, vii, viii, 34, 47, 52, 55, 56, 94, 104,
counseling, 56 110, 111, 121
crimes, 36, 49, 54, 58 distribution, 53, 57
criminality, 54 diversity, 4, 20, 24, 28, 29, 100
criminals, 54 doctors, viii, 34
crises, 30, 64, 86, 106 dosage, 45
criticism, 12 drawing, 70, 100, 101, 110
crops, 38, 45 dream, viii, 94
cross generational encystment, ix, 94
cultural differences, 55
E
D Eastern Europe, 118, 126

economic liberalization, 103
dance, 49 economic resources, 18
dances, 52, 53, 58 economic status, vii, 1
danger, 2, 5, 8, 64, 69, 73, 88, 106, 120 economics, 61
deaths, 2, 51, 98 education, 54, 58
decoration, 69, 84 El Salvador, 6, 7, 11, 32
defecation, 96 election, 2, 7, 13
defence, 122 electricity, 42
deficit, viii, 93 emergency response, 61
dehumanization, 19 emotion, 83, 107
delirium, 102 emotional reactions, 6, 13
democracy, 5, 8, 103 employees, viii, 64
denial, 102, 108 employment, 5

depolarization, 2, 16, 27 empowerment, 61
depression, 51 encouragement, 64
deprivation, 7, 120 endangered, 8
destiny, 107 enemies, 8, 19, 21
destruction, viii, 7, 9, 94, 95, 99, 100, 110, energy, 67, 87, 94, 102
127 enforcement, 64
detachment, 101 entrepreneurs, 3
detectable, 119 environment, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 49, 102, 105,
determinism, 88 119, 123, 124, 127, 128
dignity, 67 environmental conditions, 96
disappointment, 122 environments, 29, 87
discomfort, 11, 30 epidemic, 39, 49, 60
discontinuity, 120 equality, 103
diseases, 39 equilibrium, 102, 103
disorder, 55, 110 erosion, 57
displaced persons, 36, 38, 39, 42, 59, 61 Europe, ix, 115, 116, 118, 126, 128
displacement, 119 everyday life, 2
disposition, 26 evidence, viii, 34, 50, 57, 66, 71, 80, 85
dissatisfaction, 104 evil, 47
dissidents, 21 evolution, 102, 110
134 Index
exclusion, 3, 4, 6, 10, 28, 29, 99 fusion, 18

ex-combatants, viii, 34, 38, 54, 55 future soldiers, viii, 64
exercise, 4, 25
exploitation, 103
exposure, 55, 127 G
extraordinary conditions, 56
gender role, 38, 90
genocide, 60
F God, 99
grades, 87
facial expression, 108 graduate students, 63
families, 14, 18, 64, 84, 118, 119, 120, 121, gravity, 38
126 group identity, 2, 16
family conflict, 108 group processes, 16
family history, 117 group size, 67
family members, 120 group therapy, 127
fantasy, 99 growth, 8
fear, 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 21, 29, 41, 42, 44, 47, 68, guidance, 26
69, 71, 105, 107, 109, 126 guidelines, 87
fears, 21, 25, 36, 120 guilt, 8, 9, 52, 98, 104, 108, 125
feelings, 9, 13, 14, 52, 72, 73, 77, 104, 108, Gulu municipality, viii, 34, 49, 54
109
fights, 50
financial, 59, 89 H
fire fighting, 64
fires, 59, 94, 103 headache, 45, 57

fitness, 67 healing, 60
fixation, 4 health, 5, 6, 8, 39, 43, 44, 45, 52, 59, 60, 73
flame, 110 health care, 45
flexibility, 30, 67, 70 health problems, 39
flight, 7, 24 heart rate, 96
food, 14, 18, 21, 37, 39, 45, 46, 51, 96, 105 heroism, vii, viii, 7, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69,
football, 56 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 77, 80, 81, 85, 86,
force, 27, 49, 101, 123, 124 88, 89
formal education, 54, 58 Hezbollah, 103, 111
formation, 100, 102 high school, 75
foundations, 95, 108 history, ix, 44, 54, 67, 83, 96, 97, 103, 104,
fragility, 25 115, 116, 117, 127
France, vii, ix, 32, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, HIV, 38
126, 127, 128, 129 HIV/AIDS, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 56, 59, 60
freedom, 16, 103 homes, 37, 38, 41, 42, 73, 95, 123
freezing, 55 homogeneity, 28
Freud, 10, 16, 116, 129 hopelessness, 23
friendship, 13, 68, 71 host, 120
functionalization, 95 hostilities, 40
funds, 3, 52 hostility, 9
Index 135
housing, 18 interaction effect, 77

human, 6, 19, 20, 37, 57, 59, 105, 118 interference, 106
human condition, 20 intergroup behaviour, 32
human rights, 37, 57, 59, 118 internal time, 94
humanitarian agencies, viii, 34, 41, 52, 53 internally displaced, 38, 59, 61
hunting, 77, 82, 83 interpersonal relations, 11
husband, 122 interpersonal relationships, 11
hyperactivity, 109, 121 interpersonal skills, 67
hypothesis, 72, 95, 116 intervention, 2, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 44, 51,
55, 57, 60, 103
investment, 104
I isolation, 99, 121
Israel, 89, 123, 124, 127, 128
ICC, 59 issues, 43, 44, 45, 48, 60
ideal, 87
idealization, 104
ideals, 7, 68 J
identification, 2, 3, 6, 13, 16, 18, 26, 89, 108
identity, 2, 7, 8, 16, 24, 32, 94, 95, 101, 102, Jewish children, vii, ix, 115, 116, 125, 127,
103, 104, 105, 108, 110, 111, 117, 118, 128
120, 121, 124, 125, 126, 127 Jews, 117, 118, 119, 124
ideology, 5, 127 journalists, 41, 68
image, 26, 28, 108
images, 13, 14, 47
imagination, 20, 97 K
impotence, 7, 99
impulses, 9, 126 Kenya, 35
impulsive, 20 kidnapping, 111
income, 45, 53, 57, 58, 59 kill, 37, 46, 50
individual differences, 30 kinship, 45
individualism, 103
individualization, 100 L
individuals, 6, 16, 18, 21, 57, 64, 67, 73, 81,
86, 87, 117 labeling, 6
indoctrination, 3, 15, 103 lack of control, 23, 57
infection, 49 languages, 118
informed consent, 15 latency, 129
inhibition, 108 law enforcement, 64
injury, 66 laws, 37, 124
insane, 106 layering, 100
insecurity, 41, 110 lead, 8, 9, 28, 51, 67, 70, 81, 82, 104, 110
institutions, 4, 34, 43, 52, 53, 54, 94, 104 leadership, viii, 1, 26, 35, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67,
insurgency, 44 68, 70, 71, 74, 75, 80, 81, 82, 85, 86, 87,
integration, 90, 124 88, 89, 90, 91
integrity, 12, 29 leadership characteristics, 65, 66, 67, 70, 87
intelligence, 67, 70 leadership style, 85
136 Index
learning, 11, 100 military, 7, 35, 36, 40, 41, 64, 67, 69, 70,
learning difficulties, 100 71, 72, 74, 75, 77, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85,
Lebanon, 93, 95, 103, 111 86, 87, 88, 89, 90
leisure, 84 military junta, 35
lens, 68 militia, 103
liberalization, 103 mission, 42, 50
life experiences, 12 morbidity, 39, 99, 100, 110
light, 20, 40, 55, 57, 74, 99, 120 mortality, 39
living conditions, 39, 49 motivation, 71, 83, 89
local community, 58 MSF, 41, 42, 60
loyalty, viii, 24, 63, 68, 69, 75, 86, 87, 88 multidimensional, 87
murder, 129
museums, 83
M music, 53
Muslims, 103
magnitude, 51
maiming, 36
majority, 3, 39, 74, 108, 117, 119 N
malaria, 39, 45
man, 50, 68, 69 narcissism, 106
marriage, 124 narratives, 35, 43, 44, 46, 50, 51, 117, 118,
materials, 43, 51, 55 119, 121, 126
matrix, 90 national borders, 41
matter, 20, 120 national identity, 95
media, 57 nationality, 103
mediation, 101 negative consequences, 11, 15

medical, viii, 34, 45, 47, 66 neglect, 57, 122
medication, 124 Netherlands, 33, 129, 130
membership, 123 neutral, 24
memory, viii, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 94, 95, next generation, 128
104, 106, 109, 120 nightmares, 45, 46, 47, 52, 55, 100, 106
memory processes, 56 nobility, 64
mental health, 5, 8, 39, 59 non-governmental organisations (NGOs),
messages, 105 vii, viii, 33, 34, 41, 52, 56, 57, 58, 59
metabolizing, 124 North Africa, 124
metamorphosis, 110, 119 nostalgia, 104
metaphor, 12 NRC, 41
methodology, ix, 115 nurses, viii, 34
Mexico, 63
middle class, 3
middle social-economic status, vii, 1 O
migrant populations, 60
migrants, 118, 126, 130 obedience, 31
migration, 94, 95, 104 objectification, 19
occlusion, 99
officials, 39
Index 137
oil, 3 polarization, vii, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,

oil production, 3 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23,
open-mindedness, 80 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30
operations, 102 police, viii, 49, 64, 65, 86, 87, 119
opportunities, 10, 69, 80, 81 policy, 58, 59
opposition movement, 3 political leaders, 4
organ, 96 political opposition, 2
organism, 96 political parties, 6
organize, 109 political polarization, vii, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10,
11, 13, 15, 21, 28, 29, 30
politics, 8, 10, 11, 59
P population, 2, 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 25, 29, 34, 39,
41, 54, 70, 118, 128
pain, 10 positive relationship, 5, 30
panic attack, 106, 110 post-war symptoms, viii, 94
parallel, 24 poverty, 25, 49, 56, 60, 103
parallelism, 103 prayer, 57, 105, 124
paralysis, 73 pregnancy, 106
parents, 3, 12, 15, 46, 50, 51, 109, 117, 118, preservation, 127
119, 120, 121, 123, 124, 125, 127, 128 President, 2, 3, 35, 36, 40, 93, 128
Parliament, 36 prevention, viii, 30, 34, 60
participants, 1, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, primary school, 39, 53
23, 25, 27, 29, 30 private schools, 3
pathology, 93, 104 probability, 15
peace, 10, 15, 29, 30, 40, 42, 44, 53, 58
probe, 40
peer group, 127 programming, 61
permeability, 27 project, 2, 3, 7, 53, 56, 58, 63
permission, iv propaganda, 103
perpetrators, 48 protection, 41, 51, 118, 123, 128
personal identity, 103 protective factors, ix, 116
personal qualities, 68, 71 protective role, 122
personality, viii, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 71, 72, prototype, 88
73, 77, 80, 81, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 118 psychiatry, 59, 124
personality characteristics, viii, 63, 66, 72, psychic construction, vii, ix, 116
77, 80, 81, 84, 86, 87 psychoanalysis, 123, 124
personality dimensions, 64 psychoeducational intervention, 10, 11
personality inventories, 85 psychological distress, vii, viii, 34
personality traits, 64, 65, 67, 81 psychological problems, 51
pharmaceuticals, 57, 58 psychological processes, 4
photographs, 14 psychological well-being, 53
physical environment, 105 psychologist, 10
physical fitness, 67 psychology, vii, ix, 1, 20, 55, 89, 90, 93,
plants, 123 115, 116, 129
playing, 11, 30 psychopathology, 116, 128
pleasure principle, 99
Poland, 118
138 Index
psychosocial suffering, vii, 33, 34, 47, 57, resolution, 9

58 resources, 8, 9, 10, 18, 25, 30, 41, 126
psychosocial support, 55, 57 response, 3, 9, 19, 27, 54, 55, 60, 61, 74
psychosomatic, 97 retaliation, 111
psychotherapy, 93, 123, 124 rewards, 67
PTSD, 47, 52, 55, 56, 100, 106 rhythm, 94, 96, 97, 98
public awareness, 40 rights, 37, 57, 59, 118
public health, 6 risk, viii, 8, 42, 56, 63, 66, 70, 71, 74, 75,
80, 86, 87, 88, 89, 108, 126, 128
risks, 66, 69
Q risk-taking, viii, 63, 70, 71, 75
rowing, 7
questionnaire, 73, 75 rules, 14, 20, 124
rural areas, 38
R
S
racial differences, 21
radio, 54 sadness, 46, 52, 55
rape, 38, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49, 50, 54, 56 safety, 41, 99
reaction formation, 102 San Salvador, 32
reactions, 6, 11, 13, 55 scabies, 39
reading, 13, 84, 85 scarcity, 18
reality, 4, 7, 9, 11, 14, 18, 29, 42, 96, 98, 99, scholarship, 86
104, 105, 106, 108, 111, 125 school, 3, 12, 15, 16, 39, 45, 46, 47, 48, 51,
reasoning, 96 53, 75, 87, 97, 98, 103, 105, 107, 109,
recall, 45, 52 118, 127
recalling, 3, 108 scotoma, 108
recognition, 2, 26, 27, 120, 127 sectarianism, 4
recommendations, 12 security, 43, 48, 49, 72, 73, 77, 82, 88, 123,
recruiting, 65 128
refugees, 59, 97 segregation, 4
rejection, 3, 4, 7, 21, 22, 27, 29, 30, 51, 54 self-confidence, 67, 69, 82, 84
relatives, 45 self-control, 9
relevance, 11 self-discipline, 68, 74, 75, 76, 80, 81, 83
reliability, 74 self-esteem, 128
relief, 98, 124, 127 self-expression, 6
religion, 117, 119, 125 self-reports, 85
rent, 46, 48, 83 self-worth, 68, 75
repair, 9 seminars, 53
repression, 6, 8, 9, 121 semi-structured interviews, ix, 115
researchers, 13 senses, 84
reserves, 70 sensitivity, 70
resettlement, 42 services, 41, 54
resilience, 10, 58, 105, 123 sex, 37, 38, 49, 90
resistance, 11, 26, 37, 39, 54, 55 sexual abuse, 50, 120
Index 139
sexual violence, 60 spending, 43

sexually transmitted infections, 50 spontaneity, 70, 75
shame, 120 stability, 70, 89
shelter, 39, 42, 43, 45, 47, 48, 49, 51, 94, stakeholders, 35, 59
97, 98, 99, 103, 106 state, vii, viii, 5, 6, 18, 20, 29, 33, 34, 35,
shoot, 38, 48, 49 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 58, 94, 99,
showing, 2, 20, 27, 66 103, 104, 110
sibling(s), 44, 45, 46, 51, 121, 122, 123 state intervention, 103
signals, 23 states, 18, 24, 85
signs, 29, 37, 108, 121 statistics, 49
skin, 99 stereotypes, 22, 80
slaves, 37, 38 stereotyping, 22
sleep disorders, 52, 121 stigmatized, 8, 25
smoking, 83 stomach, 50
social attributes, 84 storytelling, 52
social circle, 4 strategy use, 20, 30
social class, 18 stress, 55, 67, 70, 81, 82, 83, 89, 108
social conflicts, 3 stressful events, 52
social construct, 95 structure, 9, 26, 31, 106, 111, 129
social fabric, 103 structuring, viii, 94, 95
social group, 3, 5, 57, 95, 102 style, 117
social identity, 32 subgroups, 18, 21, 24
social identity theory, 32 subjectivity, 97
social institutions, 4 succession, 96
social network, 37, 44, 45, 49 Sudan, 36, 40, 41, 50

social order, 5 supervisor(s), 15, 35
social phenomena, 17 survival, viii, 34, 49, 99, 119, 121, 125, 126
social psychology, vii, 1, 89 survivors, ix, 55, 115, 116, 120, 121, 122,
social reality, 18, 96 126, 127, 128
social relations, 5, 6, 8, 52 sympathy, 8
social relationships, 5, 8 symptoms, viii, 47, 94, 121, 122
social responsibility, 70, 81 synchronization, 96
social structure, 111
social support, 58
social withdrawal, 52 T
socialization, viii, 8, 94
society, 3, 5, 10, 12, 15, 20, 21, 29, 104, talk therapy, 51
111, 120, 127 tanks, 100
solidarity, 5, 10 target, 13, 39, 50, 54, 57, 87, 127
solitude, 82 target population, 54
solution, 85, 119 teachers, viii, 12, 30, 34, 39
somatization, 9 team members, 88
space-time, viii, 94, 95 teenage girls, 58
speech, 2, 5, 9, 15, 20, 26, 28, 29, 111 tension(s), 7, 9, 11, 19, 24, 37, 124, 125
spelling, 55 territory, 22
theft, 54
140 Index
therapist, 11 vesicle, 94
therapy, 34, 45, 51, 124, 127, 128 victimization, 26
thoughts, 13, 46 victims, 7, 10, 38, 49, 51
threats, 9, 118 videos, 77, 83
top-down, 56, 58 violence, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 17, 19, 20, 23, 25,
torture, 122, 129 27, 29, 30, 37, 38, 39, 43, 51, 56, 60, 94,
toys, 53, 105 104, 111, 122, 125
traditions, 35, 95 vision, 4, 7, 9, 17, 95, 104
trainees, 69 vulnerability, 25, 108, 110, 118
training, viii, 36, 64, 65, 69, 87, 88 vulnerable people, 58
traits, 64, 65, 67, 72, 75, 81, 82, 86
tranquilizers, 45, 124
transcription, 15 W
transformation, 29, 102
transgression, 95 walking, 77
translation, 129 war, vii, viii, 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 18,
transmission, 97, 126, 129 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, 30, 34, 35, 37, 41, 42,
trauma, viii, ix, 6, 32, 53, 55, 56, 58, 60, 94, 43, 54, 57, 58, 60, 64, 72, 73, 77, 78, 80,
95, 97, 105, 107, 110, 116, 118, 120, 81, 82, 83, 90, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100,
122, 124, 125, 128 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 119,
traumatic events, 55, 116 120, 121, 123, 125, 127, 129
traumatic experiences, 46 war hero, vii
treatment, 59, 118, 120, 122 Washington, 89
triggers, 82 water, 103, 105
weakness, 13, 25
turbulence, viii, 94
turtle, 96, 105 weapons, 1, 14, 17, 21, 35
web, 45
welfare, 87, 88
U well-being, vii, 33, 36, 43, 52, 53, 54, 56,
57, 58, 89
Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF), WHO, 60
vii, 33, 36 withdrawal, 52, 94, 102, 104
UNESCO, 60 workers, viii, 3, 64, 65, 86
uniform, 46 working conditions, 12
United Kingdom, 59 World War I, viii, ix, 63, 64, 67, 73, 74, 80,
United Nations (UN), 37, 38, 41, 53, 60 85, 90, 91, 115, 127, 128, 129
universe, 96, 125
USA, 63
Y
V Yale University, 31
Yugoslavia, 60
Venezuela, vii, 1, 2, 4, 13, 14, 15, 18, 25,
30, 31, 32

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Consequently, a series of social conflicts started. The main manifestations

Martín-Baró (1990a) pointed out that intolerance to accept and understand

CONSEQUENCES ON MENTAL HEALTH

diagnosis without executing a psychosocial analysis of the phenomenon, the

CONSEQUENCES FOR CHILDREN

The consequences of polarization and political violence affect children as

The Action-Flight Dilemma

In situations of political polarization, victimized children are invaded by

Another dilemma that children encounter is the one produced between

abandon it. This generates a feeling of lack of authenticity toward themselves

unconditional way, “absolutely” rejecting the other. This stimulates children to

EMOTIONAL REACTIONS OF CHILDREN

Children under situations of repression or war which are marked by

IMPACT OF POLITICAL POLARIZATION

The situation described at the beginning of this chapter illustrates the

psychologist. Since 2001, I have been attending as many events as possible

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESEARCH

obtain their written and informed authorization allowing their children

Table 1. Activities during experimental situation.

1st session Objectives Activity

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES OF THE INVESTIGATION

that were discussed and revised by an external supervisor (Maritza Montero)

Main Results of the Research

collectivity of individuals that possess a defined sense of belonging and shared

Process of Political Polarization

The process of polarization produced by these children bears resemblance

Table 2. Process of polarization in this research

Identification with the Leader and Expressions of Dependence

In this intervention, according to Bar-Tal (1990), the necessary conditions

The Other Perceived as a Threat. Negative Attributions towards

perceiving the other as an enemy and legitimize the use of violence as a

J: What do you think of the Red castle?

Alberto identifies in a very explicit way the dehumanization Juan makes

It is possible that this type of war situations puts the children in a

Likewise, girls used to attack boys by making whispered comments about

Carlos: Besides, girls could never beat boys.

And girls disqualified boys for being messy:

It was interesting to observe how they used stereotyping as an insult, and

Influence of Violence on Psychologists

Table 3. Interventions aimed to group control Session 4

Besides the interventions that were transcripted, there were multiple

Disqualification of the Unaligned

Ideal of Absolute Uniformity in the Group

Just as stated by Montero (2002), in polarization the idea is to dilute the

Disqualification of the Yellow One

Jacinto, the Yellow king, turned out to be an “incomprehensible”

A: Jacinto belongs to the Yellow kingdom.

Consolidation of the Group’s Sense of Belonging

The process of disqualification and denigration of the other leaded to

Recognition of Leaders as Heads of the Group

A fundamental element that allows polarization to penetrate in a group is

proposals, who offered them structure and guidance to go on (Morales, Moya,

Enrique: Queen Alejandra, yes, yes, write it down.

Desire to Align those who are Not Aligned

Table 4. Group dismembering process

Exclusion as a Way of Rejecting Diversity