A Psychoanalytic Understanding Of Palestinian Children

A Psychoanalytic Understanding of PTSD in
Palestinian Children
The Impact of the Other in Mitigating Intergenerational Trauma
Samuel Díaz-Fernández
Wheaton College
It is a travesty that children around the wor ld must be subject to the pa ins of war as if these wer e a normal
component of daily life. It is doubly a crime when a whole nation, as in the case of the Palestinia ns, is victim tothe conta ined a nd persistent war batter ing that ha s left close to half of its children suffer ing fr om the effects of
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This estimate d oes not even ta ke into account the crippling effects that the
war has had on the adult population. Sadly, wher e for most war -torn countr ies the trauma is one long night of
darkness, for the Pa lestinians the nighthas not ended since al Nakba in 1948.
The main purpose of this essa y is to begin to ‘inter twine’ a psychoanalytic understand ing of post-traumatic
stress d isorder with the socio-politica l conditions of violence a nd trauma suffered by Pa lestinians in the ArabIsraeli conflict. With this in m ind, the a uthor’s pr imary intent in the following pages is not to give a definitive
account ofthe conflict or its solution, but rather to lay the groundwor k for the pr oject of ‘intertwining’ by (1)
presenting a brief sketch of som e of the resear ch conducted to the pr esent concerning PTSD in children (with a
special emphasis on Pa lestinian children), and (2) providing an overarching psychoana lytic framewor k to expla in
the nuances of this disorder a fresh, especially in regards tothe crucial r ole of the Other in accounting for PTSD
developm ent a s a r esult of war tra uma in the aforementioned r egion.
In addressing the first ta sk, it will be important to look at the ar ray of stud ies that have been conducted in the
field of post-traumatic str ess d isorder prevalence in Pa lestinian children. By and large, these studies show that
around ha lf of the Pa lestinianchildren sampled who had under gone sever e trauma were suffer ing from full PTSD
or PTSD symptomatology.
The second ta sk will demonstrate how the onset of post-traum atic stress disorder requires more than basic
trauma (as the DSM-IV requir es) but a pr ior neurotic str uctur e similar to what Freud denoted as actual neurosis.
This pr eexisting psychological structure is what leads a personto und ergo the soma tic effects of post-traumatic
stress d isorder as the conduit for unm etabolized trauma. In ad dition, empir ica l research also shows tha t trauma,
whether it is war, a ca tastrophe, or a natural disaster, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the
developm ent of post-traumatic stress disord er in a person.
The final task will consist of tying the two sectionstogether to argue for an existing collective neurotic
structure in the Palestinian population that a ccounts for the ma rked susceptibility and vulnerability that the
children (and adults a s referenced in other studies) ha ve of developing post-tra umatic str ess d isorder. Moreover,
other contr ibuting factors, such as the lack of d iscourse, statelessness, displa cement, and a lack of a stablenational
identity will be noted in order to emphasize the wa y that the unique life cond itions of the Pa lestinian people have
turned widespread PTSD pr eva lence into a chronic inter genera tiona l problem with little hope of hea ling in the
near future.
Before going any further there are a few necessary caveats that the author wishes to ma ke to ensur e clarity
concerning the data usedand its subsequent interpretation.1 First, the author ha s chosen to exclusively focus on
Palestinian suffer ing because, even though both people groups are victims of terror ism and violence and are
equa lly worthy of study a nd attention, the Pa lestinian faction has incurred the overwhelming oppr ession of a
powerful a nd well-armed enemy state. It has also, statistica lly speaking, suffered...