Psychological trauma: Burnt into memory (original) (raw)

Nature volume 419, page 883 (2002) Cite this article

A civilian's homeland and life are drastically altered by war. Wartime strategies are ruled by hate and exclusion on both sides, with an attempt to unify one's own group through crimes against humanity. Wars are accompanied by systematic killing and ethnic cleansing — regions are left uninhabitable for local people, landmines remain a constant threat, and cultural heritage and monuments are destroyed. During the Kosovo crisis, one 90-year-old woman brought the crux of modern warfare into focus: “I've lived through the First and Second World Wars but this was worse. This time it was so bad that even the cows ran away. In the night of 24 March, at 3:30 in the morning, as NATO bombs began falling over Yugoslavia, I saw black-masked paramilitia running through Djakovica, shooting, cutting throats and burning houses.”

In our attempts to understand the psychophysiological consequences of these atrocities, we have worked with war victims from crisis regions such as the Balkans, the West Nile and Somalia, conducting interviews, observing behaviour and measuring physiological responses to specific stimuli. We are still amazed at the ability of an illiterate survivor, who has been driven out of the bush in southern Sudan and who has had little contact with the outside world, to present us with a classic report of textbook psychiatric symptoms.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, 78457, Germany
    Thomas Elbert & Maggie Schauer
  2. Vivo, Cupramontana, Box 17, Ancona, I-60032, Italy
    Thomas Elbert & Maggie Schauer

Authors

  1. Thomas Elbert
  2. Maggie Schauer

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Elbert, T., Schauer, M. Psychological trauma: Burnt into memory.Nature 419, 883 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/419883a

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