How to recognize and treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is a serious personal and social problem that each of us can face as a result of some trauma.
What characterizes people who have PTSD and can young people deal with this problem in a different way?
In the last episode of the special edition of the podcast “Zaviri ispod povrsine” (eng. Look beneath the surface), Lejla Omeragic Catic talked about this with psychotherapist Branislava Stevic from the War Trauma Center Novi Sad.
Earlier research, which included issues of social justice, showed in several clusters that people had a harder time surviving post-war injustice than traumatic events from the war.
“This means that the period after the war and all that is actually happening to us is a kind of collective trauma. People who have gone through personal traumatic experiences and had very painful and tragic events in their own lives, will react much more vulnerable to everything that happens officially in peace, where we are exposed every day, starting with the most ordinary forms of communication, a kind of violent communication and the subtle presence of aggressive behavior,” explains psychotherapist Branislava Stevic.
She believes that in the societies of the Western Balkan countries, it is unlikely that PTSD can be recognized as an isolated disorder, and that it is therefore important to talk about it as much as possible and open up these issues.
“That it should not be a taboo topic for our society, that it would be much easier for people, not only to recognize and find the strength to ask for help because if they don’t do that, unfortunately with PTSD, there is a big risk of suicide,” added Stevic in the podcast, and emphasized that it is very important for the environment to be motivating in order for that person to seek professional help.
Can younger generations fight and stop transgenerational trauma?
Psychotherapist Stevic says she believes that new generations will actually recognize the path to healing and recovery.
“How can we select all of our common traumas differently, name them differently, accept them, and notice that we could all continue together peacefully, in a human way, in a healthy life context? Because I think we’ve all had enough of suffering, sadness, and pain, we’ve had enough for three lives.”
In addition to talking with psychotherapist Branislava Stevic, in the last three episodes of the “Zavisi ispod povrsine” podcast, the authors talked with people who have been diagnosed with this disorder. Among them is Adnan Hasanbegovic, a long-time peace activist and war veteran.
He was 18 years old when the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) started. He says that it is impossible to remain unscathed and not be changed by the experience of radical violence.
“An ordinary car accident causes a little trauma, but you have it every day in war. According to the theory practiced by psychologists and therapists, any kind of war experience changes you completely and causes clinical symptoms, the so-called PTSD. And there is also something, which is, in a way, how we deal with it after all that. There is no man who has survived all that, and who is conditionally speaking, normal, who was not affected by it. You can’t stay the same.”, Slobodna Evropa reports.
E.Dz.
