Positive psychotherapy in the treatment of traumatised Yezidi survivors of sexualised violence and genocide

Abstract

So far, the psychotherapeutic treatment of patients with trauma spectrum disorders has most commonly been based on a disease model in which the normal reaction to trauma results in negative emotions, cognitions and behaviour which, in turn, cause a pathological state of mind or disorder. Here, trauma is associated with distress. This model focuses on identification, classification and treatment of the pathological and maladaptive modulations of the stress response that lead to psychological and social suffering and disability. In contrast to that, recent models in the Psychotherapy of the sequels of extreme life experiences, such as Positive Psychotherapy, have rather focussed on the building of competence, resilience and posttraumatic growth. In this article we summarise our experience in treating Yazidi women for their complex psychological traumata resulting from their experience of ISIS terror. We will use a short summary of published secondary data and reviews and use case examples from our work as primary data to discuss possible individual and collective resources that can help them to recover and to maintain a positive perspective on their person and the world, in spite of their terrible traumatic experiences. Original models of Positive Psychology already paid considerable attention to strength and resilience. The new approach of ‘second wave’ Positive Psychology expands on this, suggesting that negative emotions as well cultural factors must also be integrated. This approach appears to be particularly helpful in the treatment of this group of Yazidi women. Likewise, it seems to be promising when treating similar groups of people who survived extreme terror and were continuously exposed to genocidal environments.

Keywords:

• Positive psychotherapy
• resilience
• PTSD
• terror
• sexual violence
• coping
• gender
• genocide

Ethics approval and consent to participate

We confirm that all the research meets the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements of the country in the study. This study was approved by the ethics committee of the University of Duhok, Kurdistan Region Iraq.

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by the author.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.