Abstract
The drastic mental health consequences of living under siege are
well-known. Although specific outcomes vary according to local conditions,
besieged communities around the globe experience lethal combinations of
restricted movement, physical violence, hunger and disease, and
disruptions to schools, hospitals, welfare support systems, and other
public and community institutions. In whatever combination these and other
factors arise, one common result is widespread mental distress. This paper
addresses two primary points from a critical psychology perspective.
First, the ordinary assistance that psychiatrists, psychologists, social
workers, and other therapeutic professionals offer distressed individuals
runs into an obvious problem under siege conditions: individual therapy
and similar supports are scarcely sufficient to deal with a situation that
requires the restoration of justice. This commonsense observation, which
critical psychology applies more generally to the work of mental health
workers even under more ordinary circumstances, takes on added
significance when injustice transforms healing and recovery from an
individual concern to a community effort. Second, politically relevant
social-psychological factors interfere with both the development of
empathy and the recognition of injustice. Two factors are of special
importance in dampening global pressure to end the siege of Palestine and
hold Israel to international human rights standards: the dominant
discourse, especially in Israel and the United States, which dismisses
Palestinian suffering as self-induced and politically justified; and the
corresponding reliance on conflict resolution methods such as dialogue and
negotiation that maintain a stance of academic and political neutrality.
Ending the siege and resolving the broader conflict require pressing for
approaches that acknowledge the existing imbalances of power and suffering
as well as the historical and continuing responsibility for injustice.
Palestinians Under Siege:
A Critical Psychology Perspective on Mental Health and Justice
Fathali Moghaddam (1990) drew a distinction two decades ago between
mainstream psychology in the First World, which he termed modulative or
primarily therapeutic and individualistic, and psychology in the Third
World, which he hoped would depart from the Western model to become
generative, aimed at fostering social change. Emphasizing the importance
of despecialization in addressing the multiple causes of significant
social problems, Moghaddam suggested that a broader look at political and
other macro-level processes would turn psychologists' attention to human
rights. Moghaddam's concerns seem to me especially relevant to
psychology's potential role today in addressing the severe consequences of
living under siege.
Most of you know much more directly than I what those consequences are. My
efforts to enter Gaza several years ago failed, and so I have never until
now been able to observe conditions for myself. I have read many accounts,
which are easy enough to find for those who look for them, just as there
are abundant academic, journalistic, and political descriptions of other
besieged communities around the globe. Although specific descriptions vary
according to local circumstances, it is news to no one here that long-time
siege leads to lethal combinations of restricted movement, physical
violence, hunger and disease, and disruptions to schools, hospitals,
welfare support systems, and other public and community institutions. In
whatever combination these and other factors arise, we know that one
common result is widespread mental distress. Still, I know that whatever
insight one can glean from outside research cannot bring the kind of
awareness that comes only from first-hand experience. As explained by the
artists from the group Windows From Gaza (http://www.artwfg.ps) who
organized the Colour Siege exhibit connected to this conference,
Who lives here ... knows exactly what siege means because it became
unseparated from our daily life. The blockade became as the clothes we
wear everyday in the morning. It is like the air we breathe in order to
survive. Who beholds from a distance will not see the hideous face of
siege and how we manipulate it by all means to combat it alone. Everything
said or heard in this world can't reflect a realistic picture to what is
happening here. If you really want to realize the matter, you must listen,
see and live here ... and for this reason You ... He ... She...They and
even all the world must listen and see this siege in its realistic essence
and its ugly face. One scene of the siege shadow is better than thousands
of media calls. (Colour Siege Invitation; English translation adjusted)
In my time today I would like to describe the potential relevance to this
conference's theme of critical psychology, an approach that incorporates
the concerns raised by Fathali Moghaddam and many others. To
overgeneralize for a moment, critical psychologists from a broad range of
psychology's subdisciplines believe that traditional mainstream psychology
pays too little attention to the impact of injustice and oppression on
human behavior. Psychology's traditional individualistic focus directs
attention instead almost exclusively to individual strengths and
weaknesses. This framework, while often serving a useful function in
specific cases, oversimplifies multidimensional causes and thus overlooks
the possibility of more effective comprehensive solutions. Critical
psychologists understand that when thousands of people experience
essentially the same problem, diagnosing and treating them one at a time
while ignoring the larger societal context is short-sighted at best. (See
generally Fox, Prilleltensky, & Austin, 2009.)
Critical psychology's terminology is relatively recent, but the many
approaches that might be termed "critical" build on earlier efforts to
push mainstream psychology to pay attention to broader political concerns.
For many critical psychologists, the ultimate goal is to see individuals
flourish within mutually supportive communities in just and egalitarian
societies. To help make that possible, we seek to alter norms within
mainstream psychology that de-emphasize societal-level influences. As
Ingrid Huygens (2009) points out in a recent discussion of interactions
between colonizer and indigenous peoples, psychology's norms "emerged and
developed in the context of European conquest, exploitation and
domination" (p. 267). Failing to take that context into account continues
to strengthen an unjust status quo within the Western world and is even
more damaging in less powerful societies. Critical psychology, not
surprisingly, is generally consistent with critical approaches in fields
such as sociology (Levine, 2004), anthropology (Gupta & Ferguson, 1997),
law (Kairys, 1998; Unger, 1986), and pedagogy (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1985;
Freire, 1970; Illich, 1971). In psychology, unfortunately, endorsement of
traditional values, assumptions, and practices remains particularly strong
despite activist, feminist, radical, and postmodern critiques (Brown,
1973; Fox & Prilleltensky, 1997; Fox, Prilleltensky, & Austin, 2009;
Martin-Baro 1994; Sarason, 1981; Tolman, 1994; Wilkinson, 1986).
As part of their everyday work, most psychologists try to help individuals
cope with mental distress arising from a wide variety of sources. That's
difficult enough in routine circumstances even in the developed countries
where most psychologists -- and most critical psychologists -- live and
work. But the ordinary assistance that psychiatrists, psychologists,
social workers, and other therapeutic professionals offer distressed
individuals runs into even greater problems under conditions of siege,
war, genocide, and other forms of systemic violence. Individual therapy
and similar supports are scarcely sufficient to deal with situations that
so clearly require the restoration of justice. Persistent injustice and
oppression transform healing and recovery from an individual concern to a
community effort.
Critical psychologists, especially critical community psychologists, have
for the past few decades focused increasing attention on devastated
communities. In 1990, when Brinton Lykes and Ramsay Liem described the
early work on human rights and mental health by psychologists in the
United States, they pointed to significant efforts in Latin America in
particular. They had this to say:
Wars of resistance against political oppression are a major fact of life
in most regions of the world. Although frequently local in character, they
are often sustained by the material and ideological support of the
superpowers....
State-sponsored violence and civil war are generally the concerns of
politicians, military officials, foreign policy experts, and the like.
Rarely are they considered to fall within the domain of the social or
behavioral sciences. In recent years, however, psychologists and other
mental health workers have begun to document the human costs of war,
especially the psychosocial trauma suffered by civilian victims....
Clinical and community interventions have been developed specifically to
aid those directly targeted by state-sponsored violence. (Lykes & Liem,
1990, pp. 151-152).
Lykes and Liem went on to note that "the greatest challenges may be in
helping those indirectly affected by war. Whether or not they have lost
family members or suffered physical harm, people must still come to terms
with a social reality in which terror, destruction, and violent death have
become the norm rather than the exception" (Lykes & Liem, 1990, p. 152).
In her most recent account of this subject, which broadens the focus to
similar work in Africa and Asia, Lykes and her colleague Erzulie Coquillon
(2009) emphasize once again that "psychologists working with survivors in
contexts of extreme poverty where there have been or continue to be gross
violations of human rights should respond from within a human rights
framework" (p. 285). They note that conflict today
often target[s] civilian populations for economic, strategic, and
political purposes.... Conflict can displace populations, separate
families, and create constant threat of physical violence including sexual
violations and death, all of which may undermine the social cohesion and
community life that are crucial for individual strength, meaning, and
identity. (Lykes & Coquillon, 2009, pp. 286-287)
The role of psychologists in a state of ongoing siege, Lykes and Coquillon
suggest, is to devise interventions based on critical and liberation
psychology that are (citing Prilleltensky and Nelson, 2009) "contextual
(ecological), political (focusing on social injustice and power), and
value-driven (emphasizing social justice)" (Lykes & Coquillon, 2009, p.
289) This approach to trauma stands in stark contrast to that of
mainstream psychology, which sees trauma as "embedded in medical
conceptions of illness wherein selected symptoms and behavioral indices
provide evidence of post-traumatic stress or other diseases" (Lykes &
Coquillon, 2009, p. 289). Lykes and Coquillon add that,
Although this is not necessarily a "bad" or problematic approach,
attributing the effects of war, state-sponsored violence, and structural
oppression primarily or exclusively to biomedical factors constrains
medical and social scientific understandings of survivors' deeper
distress. Survivors' pain or "social suffering"... embodies political,
economic, cultural as well as psychological phenomena. (Lykes & Coquillon,
2009, pp. 289-290)
Many critical psychologists such as Brinton Lykes who work with victims of
war, siege, repression, and oppression cite as a model the work of Ignacio
Martin-Baro the Salvadoran Jesuit priest and social psychologist who
sought to define and develop a psychology of liberation. For his efforts
on behalf of his beleaguered people, Martin-Barowas assassinated by a
right-wing death squad in 1989. Perhaps because of his background in
social psychology, his focus was not just on therapy for isolated victims
but on behavior outside the therapeutic setting. Indeed, he saw no sharp
distinction. Critiquing narrow traditional views of "mental health,"
Martin-Baro had this to say:
The problem is rooted in a limited conception of human beings that reduces
them to individual organisms whose functioning can be understood in terms
of their individual characteristics and features. Such a conception denies
their existence as historical beings whose life is developed and fulfilled
in a complex web of social relations. If the uniqueness of human beings
consists less in their being endowed with life ... and more in the kind of
life they construct historically, then mental health ceases to be a
secondary problem and becomes a fundamental one.... To put it more
plainly, mental health is a dimension of the relations between persons and
groups more than an individual state. (Martin-Baro 1994, p. 109)
Martin-Baro's perspective foreshadows recent work by critical social
psychologists who reject their field's traditional assumptions. Even
mainstream social psychologists have paid attention to factors that
interfere with the empathy that's needed to recognize injustice. Social
psychologists have also sought to improve methods of conflict resolution.
From a critical perspective, however, both traditional empirical research
on relevant social psychological constructs and the reliance on conflict
resolution methods such as dialogue and negotiation too often leave
injustice in place. In my view, a stance of academic and political
neutrality often does little more than help sustain an unsatisfactory
status quo. In my remaining time I would like to focus on this last point
in particular, especially as it relates to the situation of Palestine and
Israel. The dominant discourse, for example, especially in the United
States, dismisses Palestinian suffering as minimal, self-induced, and
justified. This stance dampens global pressure to end the siege of Gaza
and hold Israel accountable to international human rights standards.
Mainstream academics often internalize the assumption that their research
must be, and indeed actually is, objective and value free. Critical
theorists, in contrast, point out that even in the hard sciences our
personal, professional, and political biases inevitably come into play,
from the choice of theoretical model and framing of research questions to
the scramble for funding and selection of methodology to the analysis and
presentation of findings and policy recommendations (Rein, 1976). Most
significantly for our purposes here, the pose of objectivity and ethical
neutrality often masks personal preferences and institutional inertia that
favor the powerful at the expense of others. Focusing on the centrality of
data rather than on value disparity and power imbalance leads in
conventional rather than system-challenging directions.
My concerns about academia also apply to other institutions claiming
objectivity and neutrality such as journalism and education. They apply as
well to mediation, dialogue groups, and other forms of dispute resolution
that outsiders frequently proclaim to be the preferred way to resolve
differences between Israelis and Palestinians. However, although
approaching issues as a neutral can help a newcomer, a mediator, or a
helping professional discover how each side frames important issues, in
deep political conflicts reconciliation requires acknowledging and
resolving long-standing grievances and being open to transforming
institutions. Although dialogue and self-disclosure can generate powerful
emotions and personal change, thus increasing interaction and sometimes
even empathy and friendship, they do not reliably enough motivate a
commitment to end institutional injustices linked to favored values and
group interests.
Key conflict-resolution assumptions are not appropriate when the opposing
parties have unequal access to power or when reasonable external standards
such as universal principles of justice overwhelmingly support the weaker
side. Pretending that all perceptions are not only equally relevant but
equally valid, thus making compromise down the middle the obvious
solution, renders victim and victimizer equally responsible. In this way,
neutral mediation de-legitimizes crucial concerns, rewards the more
powerful side's stubbornness, and institutionalizes existing power
imbalances.
Two years ago I spent a day in Bet Jallah observing a group of Palestinian
and Israeli high school teachers working on a dual-narrative history
project. Directed by Sami Adwan and Dan Bar-On of the Peace Research
Institute in the Middle East (PRIME), the teachers had already produced a
series of short texts on key historical events; the Israeli narrative runs
down the left side of each page, the Palestinians' down the right (PRIME,
2003). One thing about this difficult project struck me as curious: PRIME
did not envision working toward a single historical narrative that both
sides might come to accept. Integrating the conflicting perspectives, I
was told, if such a task could even be accomplished, would likely make it
impossible to use the material in either Palestinian or Israeli schools.
Most Palestinians I met on my previous visits were less interested than
PRIME's researchers in prioritizing mutual understanding. They were
equally skeptical of political negotiations that bypassed core historical
and legal disputes or that seemed designed to resolve those disputes in
Israel's favor. They too wanted peace and many even sought reconciliation,
but they asked this: Where is justice? The academics and activists among
them had little confidence in Israelis who were eager to talk and
understand but unwilling to reassess their bottom line.
Last winter, I attended a conference in the United States based partly on
the assumption that traditional academic research and conflict-resolution
techniques would lead to a stable two-state solution. My own presentation
objected to this assumption (Fox, 2008). In making some of the points I
have already noted here, I pointed out that the conference's list of
relevant topics omitted any mention of justice and law. From a traditional
conflict-resolution perspective, of course, these omissions make sense.
Addressing justice and law would push the conversation closer to the
Palestinian narrative and make an even-handed framework more jarring. The
conference, as a result, was not designed to explore as a central question
which side's perceptions more accurately reflect historical events and
global standards of human rights, or even whether those events and
standards are relevant. The same criticism can be made of other work in
psychology based on the assumption that the underlying conflict is social
psychological rather than political and that "perception is more important
than reality" (e.g., Salinas, 2007; see critiques by Fox, 2007, 2008, and
Elbedour, 2007). Shunting aside history and ignoring relevant standards
make sense only if one considers all perceptions equally legitimate.
In concluding, I would like to refer one more time to Brinton Lykes'
important work. She and Erzulie Coquillon note
a concern about an unexamined assumption underlying much psychosocial
work: that the expected outcomes are "recovery and healing." As critical
psychologists and human rights activists, we should consider the multiple
meanings of words like recovery, healing, reparation, and reconciliation.
Critical psychological work with survivors of human rights violations
stemming from war and other forms of violence implicates questions of
justice and truth. Thus psychological language of "recovery," as commonly
used, is insufficient to encompass the search for justice with truth.
Moreover, if justice is "pending" in most if not all communities emerging
from war, what are the possible consequences of psychosocial interventions
in its absence? (Lykes & Coquillon, 2009, pp. 296-297)
I think it fair to say that Lykes and Coquillon's caution about working
with direct victims applies as well to the broader conflict between
Palestinians and Israelis. Ending the siege and ending the broader
conflict require pressing for approaches that acknowledge the existing
imbalance of power and suffering as well as the historical and continuing
responsibility for injustice. Mainstream psychology is ill equipped to
advance such a task, because its professional horizons and ideological
defenses dismiss such concerns as irrelevant. Critical psychologists, in
contrast, understand that power cannot be ignored and justice cannot be
abandoned.
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