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WORLD ISLAMIC
ASSOCIATION FOR MENTAL HEALTH Vol. I, No. IX. Ninth Issue- January 2001 |
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CONTENTS /
SOMMAIRE
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MESSAGE FROM THE SECRETARY
“An Apartheid Regime Endangers the Mental Health of Victimized
Palestinians” / DR. OMAR SHAHEEN, FRC Psych.
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The
Islamic Approach to the Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress / El Sendiony M.F
(The American University in Cairo)
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WIAMH World Congress:
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“Teachers as Therapists”: A Program to Help War Traumatized Children
Around the Globe. /
Syed Arshad Husain, M.D |
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q SUMMARY / RESUMES |
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MESSAGE FROM THE SECRETARY
“An Apartheid Regime Endangers the Mental Health of Victimized Palestinians”
/ Dr. Omar SHAHEEN, FRC Psych. I
feel proud and very happy to convey greetings to you as a WIAMH President. At
the same time I feel an important commitment and responsibility. Although it
is true that our organization has played a significant role in drawing
attention to mental health problems, care and prevention in different parts
of the Muslim world, it is also true that what characterizes our time is
turmoil and change. I would like to invite all of you to participate actively
in the World Islamic Association for Mental Health. If we wish the
association to participate in the solution of major mental health problems of
the Muslim world, then the commitment and responsibility belongs to all of
us.
I would like to congratulate all WIAMH
members wherever they are in the Global Village for the holy month of
Ramadan. I wish them also a happy Bairam. I wish you all a very generous
Ramadan.
It is a season of forgiveness, one of
charity and solidarity.
The WIAMH is heavily involved in the
mental health of Muslims all over the world. It has come when the mental
health of Palestinians has been adversely affected.
The World is not adequately informed
of the inhuman circumstances under which the Palestinians live – of how, for
instance, the Israeli Army has prevented the flow of food and medicine to
thousands of wounded civilians. For more than 3 months it has been a daily
exercise for Israeli troops to bombard residential areas, gun down
demonstrators and assassinate public figures – all in response to protests in
which the Palestinians have only stones for weaponry.
The tragedy is deepening. Israel is
using helicopter gunships to kill Palestinian civilians and destroy their
homes. Palestinian children and youngsters are being destroyed by Israeli
armament for protesting with rocks inside Palestinian territory.
The number of Palestinians killed is
over 300, close to 10,000 injured – many of these people sustained serious
wounds meaning they will be left with a host of disabilities for the rest of
their lives.
The situation is exacerbating by a
criminal blockade which made the transfer of the seriously wounded to
hospitals in the Arab world and some European countries more difficult,
leading to more fatalities. This also has driven the numbers of Gazans in
need for food assistance up from 8 to 85 percent of the sector’s 1.5 million
population, creating “a severe humanitarian crisis” in the words of UNRWA
commissioner – general Peter Hansen.
If we are to call things by their real names,
this is
genocide in slow motion, there is no other word that can fully describe
what has been happening in Palestine since the 28th of September
2000.
Israel is an occupying power that is
inflicting upon its subjugated people many of the same outrageous practices
the Jews themselves suffered in other parts of the World. The Israelis must
come to terms with the fact that no amount of plastic surgery will succeed in
hiding the monstrous face of occupation.
As a president of WIAMH, I call on the
United Nations to deploy international peacekeeping forces to provide the
Palestinians with protection and to deter Israeli occupation from the
excessive use of violence. Jewish blood is not the only sacred blood, our
blood is sacred too.
I also call on the United Nations to
provide WIAMH with a safe passage to deliver mental health services to the
war traumatized and victimized Palestinians.
As a mental health worker I feel that
the Israelis are seriously disturbing the mental health of the Palestinians.
At the end of the second millennium 3 million Palestinians are imprisoned in
ghettos.
For the past 12 weeks collective
punishment in every form has been imposed on the inhabitants of these
ghettos. Under a racist colonial policy of separation, the Israeli occupation
forces are digging deep trenches in bypass roads to prohibit the Palestinians
from using them to escape imprisonment. Muslims and Christians are prohibited
from praying in their holy shrines in Jerusalem. Women in labor, especially
those traveling from villages are stopped at Israeli military posts and
prevented from reaching the hospital. Wounded children and young men are left
to bleed to death. Ambulances are shot at and their drivers are killed.
This is an apartheid regime.
A former Shin Bet security service director criticized such
policies recently.
Ha’aretz
newspaper quoted him in its editorial of 6
December 2000 as saying “This is the same security outlook whose failure to
realize its aims led almost naturally to the idea of separation from the
Palestinians. Is the option of a Jewish democracy with apartheid acceptable?
In my opinion no.”
The Israeli press has also launched a
propaganda campaign against the Palestinian people’s uprising blaming the
victims. One if its most outrageous and perverse claims has been that
Palestinian parents send their children out to be killed by Israeli soldiers.
Some American and Israeli writers have described this as “Palestinian
Paganism”. This is more than racist folly – it is fascism; it is not even an
attempt to dehumanize the Palestinians, it is far worse, for even animals
protect their young.
If willingness to sacrifice their
children makes the Palestinians something less than animals, however, what
are the civilized Israelis who are more than eager to massacre those
children?
DR. Omar SHAHEEN, FRC Psych.
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The Islamic Approach to the Treatment of
Post-Traumatic Stress / El Sendiony M.F (The American University in Cairo) The
“treatment” for post-trauma stress does not have to be done by a health
professional. The guidelines of UNHCR display an unusually strong
commitment to demedicalizing the personal response to trauma. It repeatedly
designated as ‘normal’ the typical and widespread reactions to these
traumatic experiences.
According to Peter Baynes of Charles
Sturt University, “The treatment for post-trauma stress is simple, free and
available from any trusted person who knows how to ask the right questions
and then be a good listener.” In the Muslim world in which religion permeates
the totality of life, spirituality and faith can contribute to the alleviation
of psychological suffering induced by PST. A Muslim under whatever physical,
mental, social and emotional circumstances is a believer in Allah.
From this unshakable faith in Allah, the entire treatment of the
Muslim with a post-traumatic stress should be grounded. Religion and
psychiatry can and will make an ever increasing contribution in the coming
years to help people with PTS to live normal, happy, and worthwhile lives. Message
from the Secretary General “Help
is needed for the victimized Palestinians”
As Palestinians resume talks with the
Americans in Washington, a State Department Spokesman said, “Israeli troops
have been continuing their brutal repression of the uprising”. In the past
week 14-21 December, the Israeli army and settlers have killed 18
Palestinians, including 3 children, bringing the Palestinian death toll since
the outbreak of the Intifada to 328.
More than 10,000 injured of which
1,000 are permanently disabled. Of this last number,
40 percent are
children; according to Muhammad Said of the Al Ahram Center for Political and
Strategic Studies.
Where the ratio of this casualty toll
to the Palestinian population to be applied to a country the size of the US,
for example it would equal 20,000 dead and 690,000 wounded, all within 3
months since the outbreak of the
Intifada.
These bleak conditions in the occupied
Palestinian territories have resulted in a high rate of traumatized children
and adults.
According to a study conducted by the
Palestinian
Child and Family Consultation Center in Jerusalem, “There is a high
prevalence of psychological trauma in the Palestinian children exposed to war
atrocities.” However, “There are not enough trained mental health
professionals (MHP) in the Occupied Territories who can handle such a large
number of psychological casualties.”
This disproportion between the number
of MHP’s and the children in need of help created the necessity for training
mental health professionals in Trauma Psychology.
WIAMH has a pioneer extensive and
intensive experience with traumatized children, women and men. Its President
Elect has led a team to train teachers in diagnosing and treating children
suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
In response to the needs of the
war-traumatized children in Bosnia, Herzegovina and other parts of the world
as well, Dr. Husain has established a specialized psychological
trauma-training center within the School of Medicine at the University of
Missouri.
At the center, teachers and mental
health professionals from around the world are trained by a
multi-disciplinary team of psychiatrists, educators, psychologists and social
workers.
Dr. Husain and his team are to be
commended for their pioneer efforts. Traumatized Palestinians can benefit
from the perspective that Dr. Husain provides for the treatment and
prevention of people whose disturbances are associated with trauma exposure.
The Palestinian situation furnishes a classical laboratory for the study of
Trauma Psychology.
Because of the urgent need for Mental
Health Professionals (MHP) who can detect and treat conditions associated
with trauma in occupied Palestine, WIAMH is contemplating the possibility of
organizing an in-service training for Palestinian mental health workers
including General Practitioners psychologists, social workers and nurses.
However, the continuous Israeli blockade of Palestinian territories has
rendered this plan a Mission Impossible.
Therefore the
Secretariat General of WIAMH has sent a message to the
World Health Organization.
From:
Dr. M. Farouk El Sendion Secretary General
WIAMH
To:
Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland -
Director-General (World Health Organization)
Dear Dr Gro
Harlem,
In due of the psychological devastation endured by the residents of
the Palestinian territories, and the gross shortage of badly needed mental
health personnel to cope with victims of trauma, WIAMH has planned an
intensive in-service course for training Palestinian mental health
professional in the Psychology of Trauma.
The present Israeli blockade of
Palestinian has made this program an impossible mission.
We would highly appreciate your help
to achieve this humanitarian goal.
Regards
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WIAMH World Congress: World
Islamic Association for Mental Health Congress, Aden, Yemen, 10-12 October
2001. The venue is the University of Aden.
The Secretariat General of WIAMH has
received a letter from Dr. Abu Bakr Badahdah, Vice President of WIAMH,
informing us that the next WIAMH Biennial Congress will be held in Aden on
the above-mentioned date. Dr. Badahdah has worked very hard with the Yemeni
Association
for Mental Health to set this congress in Aden.
We appreciate his courtesy in working
very hard with his Yemeni colleagues to bring this congress to a successful
conclusion.
We call on WIAMH members to send their
ideas about possible themes for this congress. We look forward to your
participation in this congress in this fascinating city.
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“Teachers as Therapists”: A Program to Help War Traumatized Children
Around the Globe. /
Syed Arshad Husain, M.D With
the armed conflict taking place in a number of countries around the world, an
alarming number of children and adolescents are being killed, maimed,
bereaved and displaced. For example, a few years ago blood-letting in Rwanda
caused the deaths of over 200,000 people – the majority of victims were women
and children. Similarly, in the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma
City, a large number of the victims also were women and children.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, of 200,000
people killed during the war, 17,000 were children. Moreover, a significant
number of children who survived are suffering from severe psychological
trauma produced by the exposure to war atrocities. According to a UNICEF
survey,
7% of the children have lost one or both of their parents; 23% have been
forced to leave their towns or villages; 60% have been in a situation in
which they thought they would be killed. More than half of the children have
been shot at by snipers. As a result 37% are severely clinically depressed,
and a saddening 92% reported feeling so desperate that they often thought of
killing themselves.
With a this high prevalence of
psychological trauma in the children exposed to war atrocities, there was an
urgent need for mental health professionals (MHP) who were proficient in
detecting and treating grief and psychosomatic behavioral and psychiatric
conditions that are associated with trauma exposure. However, there were not
enough trained mental health professionals in Bosnia and Herzegovina who
could handle such a large number of psychological casualties. According to
the reports of the Ministry of Health of Bosnia and Herzegovina, only a
handful of MHP remained in the city of Sarajevo to serve 60,000 children
exposed to war trauma. This disproportion between the number of MHP and the
children in need of help created the necessity to train “lay therapists”.
Consequently, a
University of
Missouri (UMC) team of mental health professionals, under the leadership
of this author, a child psychiatrist by training developed a program to train
teachers in diagnosing and treating children suffering from post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD).
The selection of teachers as therapist
was based on the observation – that teachers in Sarajevo have been recognized
as the ones who have intuitively and effectively provided psychological help
to their students during the war. The research literature has repeatedly
advocated the use of teachers as interventionists for the children following
trauma. Children trust their teachers, with whom they spend as much time as
with their own families. Teachers have extensive experience in relating to
children, they have exposure to children in crisis, and they often have
intuitive mental health care skills that allow them to acquire mental health
education rapidly. Thus, these 5,000 teachers of Sarajevo provide an
effective pool of sophisticated workers who can be trained in detecting and
treating PTSD an depression in their students.
Since early 1994, the UMC team has
made 16 trips to date to Bosnia and Herzegovina and has trained 2,000
teachers who are now providing help to approximately 20,000 children. In
addition, the UMC team has trained over 200 mental health professionals in
Bosnia who provide supervision to teachers.
The situation in the Palestinian
territories is very much similar to the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina
described above where a high prevalence of psychological trauma is found
among children exposed to war atrocities. There is also another similarity in
the gross shortage in mental health professionals to cope with the basic
treatment needs of war-traumatized children. The above-mentioned model can be
replicated in the case of the Palestinian situation. |
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