PART II:

TREATMENT AND SUPERVISION

    A special focus during the second part of the training will be on the treatment of survivors of organized violence. Aid workers who have or will assist traumatized people and communities in the field will gain specific technical skills for their work. We will look at measures of ‘first aid’ for acutely traumatized survivors, but also at the impact of trauma on the life of communities and future generations.  Participants will be encouraged to identify the symptoms of PTSD and DES in affected individuals.  Methods of acute interventions will be reviewed practically and currently available procedures for treatment and prevention of psychotrauma will be discussed and analyzed in view of their efficacy and appropriateness in field situations. Long-term versus short-term treatment approaches will be compared. Participants will learn that a number of different approaches aim at supporting people and communities that suffer from traumatic stress, but that not all of them are effective; some of them can even be harmful.

   A first stage training in Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET), which was pioneered by vivo, will be offered exclusively. Narrative Exposure is a joint approach of psychological treatment and explicit testifying of human rights violations. It focuses on the individual and the community alike. This Therapy (NET) can be understood as a psychological method to allow reorganization of emotional networks (in anxiety disorders especially) in PTSD. The intervention prevents cognitive avoidance and induces emotional reprocessing of negative, stressful and traumatic life-events through imaginative exposure. Participants will carry out therapeutic training sessions under supervision and guidance of the vivo staff.

    Finally, we will concentrate on the issue of how to support aid workers to seek help for themselves or deal with vicarious traumatization. The workshop will also look into support mechanisms such as organizational supervision and peer group support for returning staff.