4th of february

A presentation given by Jaap Kool, a Dutch psychiatrist.

Summary written by Noortje Stoffels

Mister Kool starts his presentation by asking us if we know what trauma actually means. He tells us that it’s not as simple as we think it is. 
He explains to us the meaning of the ‘meaning attribution process’. This process means that we as people all give meaning to a certain event based on the following factors:
-circumstances of the event
-personal history, character
-relational factors (e.g. your supporting system)
-power position
-political, religious and ideological thoughts

When those factors are good the chance of developing a trauma is rather small. The chance of developing a trauma is bigger when the factors aren’t very good.

He shows us some pictures of little kids in Africa who are crying and very skinny people from Africa who look barely alive. We all immediately think of those people as traumatized people. The pictures touch us and that’s the reason why they are used by many charity’s, so we will give them money. But in those picture we only see personal trauma. This is the form of trauma that we all mostly think about when thinking about trauma. But what about society trauma’s? What are the effects on society in war regions?
And what about looking at trauma in another way? We, as therapists, mostly look at the negative side of a trauma (the wound/injury) but there are actually two more sides to look at when looking at a trauma. We should also look at the neutral (Resilience, meaning the ability of your body to cope with it and don’t give a real meaning to the event) and the Positive (ADD, meaning, ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger). 
Embracing and using the positive sides of trauma is better than treating the negative ones.

After all these explanations and new views about trauma he shows us parts of a documentary he made with a well-known reporter from the Netherlands. These topics were the ones discussed in the documentary:
-African girls who were raped during and after war and got a child from their rapist
-Narrative theatre, specialist talking to large groups of people, trying to mentally help them by acting 
out certain scenes which describe problems that those people have to cope with
-Frere Emmanuel: the organizer of narrative theatre, he explains about the organization
-Hope flowers school: Peace education, recognizing trauma in their students (and parents) and trying 
to treat it
-Politics: how the everyday violence of the streets effects the kids

At last he explains that the organization he works for doesn’t bring the victims in those (post) war regions money or food, the organization brings the people knowledge, which they can use to increase their life standards. In this way the organization brings a long lasting positive effect to the people that they also can pass on to others so they can increase their life standard as well.