Trauma and resilience during war: a look at the children and humanitarian aid workers of Bosnia.
In summary, resilience in both the children and the workers had key aspects which were definable and similar. Both groups required support and connectedness to others, as well as a need to distance themselves from the impact of the suffering. Both groups required the use of similar mechanisms, such as cognitive restructuring, relaxation, and thought-stopping. The activities of "healthy" individuals in both populations were parallel. In both populations, some actions occurred spontaneously and could be bolstered through circumscribed interventions. In other cases, actions and activities to promote resilience of both populations needed to be created. These actions would affect not only the stress experienced by the workers in the field, improving their quality of life and longevity of service, and reducing costs for the agency involved, but also the children who were being serviced by those workers. Truly working on these strategies seemed to make the difference between short-term coping and longer-term resilience. Those individuals who were not able to incorporate the resilience-promoting factors may have been able to cope in the short term with the immediate threat, but then had difficulties following the cessation of the armed conflict. Over the course of my subsequent visits to Bosnia I found a higher rate of alcoholism and suicide among teenagers than anticipated. They had apparently survived the most imminent threat and then succumbed to the long-term stress. Some of these problems were due to demobilization from the army of those teenagers who had been in the military. They were now left with no defined role after having had an important one, which had given them considerable power. The demobilization of their fathers caused problems as well. Friction between the parents arose as the father took authority back from the mother who had been in charge of the family in the father's absence. I also found considerable turnover among the humanitarian aid workers. Those who had been able to stay on the job and be effective in the long run were those who had truly internalized resilience strategies.
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D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D017522:Bosnia and Herzegovina; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003209:Concentration Camps; D005260:Female; D006708:Homicide / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D012036:Refugees / Q000523:psychology*; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000523:psychology*; D017741:Survivors / Q000523:psychology*; D014480:United Nations; D014838:Volunteers; D014857:Warfare