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and its consequences for future social relations in communities where there has been strong
levels of social cohesion until now.
Themes
Very clear themes were evident in all of the clients stories. Abduction, physical and emotional
torture, destruction of homes and possessions causing displacement were recurring themes.
Most clients were in physical pain due to the injuries as one client states:
“ At times I have problems with chest pains. At times I feel like I have asthma. At times I
cannot bend. This happened from the time when I was injured.”
In some cases, clients had lost loved ones due to the OVT and were in a state of grief as with this
following client:
“There are so many painful experiences but killing my son, ah! That is very painful. There
are times when I am sitting just resting and I expect my son to walk in the door….. it is
painful. …. It is still so painful. I’ll never forget this pain, never.”
Others had been separated from their loved ones and still did not know where they were and if
they were safe.
One client says, “Of all the things that happened to me, one thing that pains me most is the
family I left behind. This worries me a lot. I left my wife and child. …. Right now I do not
know how things are at home. Maybe they were beaten up, or maybe they were killed, I
don’t know…. I left everything there.”
The strong themes of emotions were loss, grief, isolation, anxiety, fear, anger, and suspicion.
The theme of anxiety and fear was most often linked to how the clients were going to be able to
look after family members and be able to ‘get their lives back to normal again’.
One clients states, “I am deeply pained by the destruction of (my parent’s) home. Now
both parents are old, and to imagine them starting afresh to build up when things are so
expensive, for them to reach where they have been now, this pains me a lot”. Another
client said “I’d say there are two things. Firstly, they introduced a fear in my life. I’m
afraid all the time, afraid that they will come back for me at any time. Secondly is the
uncertainty of how I will survive and fend for my children.”
AMANI Trust: At the boiling point of the pain. Report of a pilot study examining the eficacy of psychotherapy for torture
survivors.