title: Do South African former detainees experience post-traumatic stress? Circumventing the demand characteristics of psychological assessment.
abstract: Most research on persons subjected to physical or psychological torture for political reasons has framed this experience as traumatic, with the sequelae approximating the diagnostic criteria of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Yet, critiques of the trauma model have called attention to the fact that PTSD represents a Western conceptualization of the concerns of persons who have survived stressful experiences. In order to determine whether symptoms of traumatization are salient psychiatric phenomena for South African former detainees, semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 20 respondents who were detained and tortured for political reasons during the apartheid era. Interviews were transcribed and analysed for thematic content using a grounded theory approach. Results showed that although the main concerns expressed were unrelated to traumatization, participants also indicated that they experienced symptoms of post-traumatic stress. These data suggest that although too great a focus on traumatic responses may be misplaced, it remains important to consider the possibility that former detainees may exhibit symptoms of this nature. Consequently, critiques of the trauma discourse as a Western phenomenon need to be tempered with evidence of the lived reality of psychological sequelae experienced by this population.
authors.affiliation: Stellenbosch University, Department of Psychology, Matieland, South Africa. skagee@sun.ac.za
authors.forename: Ashraf
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kagee
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011057:Politics; D011287:Prejudice; D011329:Prisoners / Q000523:psychology*; D013019:South Africa; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D014104:Torture / Q000523:psychology*