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The International Trauma Research Net Conference    Individual and collective trauma - reality, myth, metaphor?
June 28-30, 2002


organized by the Trauma Research Net in collaboration with the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, and the International Academy for Innovative Education, Psychology and Economy at the Free University of Berlin (INA GmbH) and sponsored by the Hamburg Foundation for the Advancement of Research and Culture will take place at the Wilhelm-Kempf-Haus in Wiesbaden-Naurod (Germany) from June 28-30, 2002.
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Conference objective
  Conference schedule
  Speakers
 

Conference objective

In recent years, the meaning of the word "trauma" has changed dramatically from a limited clinical term towards a rather broad metaphor used all over the world to illustrate human suffering. Trauma projects, trauma institutions and trauma research have become mainstream elements of interventions in crisis regions, developmental policies and in general clinical research and practice. Speaking of individual and collective trauma has become part of a language common to sociologists, historians, educators and economists. Although all this implies a certain recognition of the relevance of human suffering in the context of disasters and destruction, it also implies the risk that a relevant concept may be opened up to confusion and incorrect use and may even be stripped of all meaning. The aim of the trauma network's conference, which will be held in Wiesbaden from June 28 to 30, 2002, is therefore to discuss this issue and related questions with researchers and practitioners from all around the world, as a consciously interdisciplinary and intercultural effort.

We are interested in questions such as:

- Is the term "collective trauma" useful to describe massive human disasters?
- Can we begin to develop a systematic concept of "collective trauma"?
- How can we arrive at more precise categories for defining "collective trauma" and employ them to integrate productively the results of empirical trauma research and trauma concepts developed in the fields of cultural studies, psychoanalysis and elsewhere?
- What possibilities and what limitations result from the epistemological "fuzziness" of the concept of "collective trauma" within discourse about recent history?
- On what level of abstraction are we working and what do we aim for (with respect to political rhetoric and to historical analysis) when we speak - both descriptively and analytically - of "traumatized collectives"?
- If we assume that collective traumatization does exist as a phenomenon, does it follow that we must re-formulate the functional concepts employed by sociology to describe society?
- Should we try to limit the term trauma to a strictly clinical space, or should we favor a trauma definition that includes other disciplines like history, philosophy or sociology?
- What is the relevance of trauma for genocide studies?
- Do the trauma centers springing up all around the world make sense?
- To what extent is the use of trauma concepts helpful when dealing with refugees?
- Are trauma and trauma therapy contradictory to objectives like empowerment and self-healing?
- After trauma has occurred where does healing take place? In the individual? In the community?

We have organized the conference in six plenary sessions and six working groups; the latter will discuss specific issues and continue throughout the conference. All plenary sessions will present two co-speakers in order to ensure an interdisciplinary and transcultural discussion. The working groups will pursue the following six issues:

- Transgenerational transmission of trauma
- Traumatic history: speaking the void in literature
- Cultural context and the difficulty of conceptualizing trauma
- The insecure (legal) status of refugees and the vicissitudes of therapeutical help
- Victimhood and empowerment
- From genocide to terrorism: the outcome of collective grandiose omnipotence

Although these topics present a wide area of our different theoretical and practical concerns all of them will in reference to their specific topic pursue the overall questions and issues of the conference. Please note that the tentative agenda is subject to alteration.

Cornelia Berens and David Becker on behalf of the conference steering committee: David Becker, Cornelia Berens, Mihran Dabag, Ilany Kogan, Dori Laub, Jan Philipp Reemtsma, Eric Markusen, Kristin Platt, Sibylle Rothkegel, Christian Schneider
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Conference objective
  Conference schedule
  Speakers
 
Conference schedule

 
Friday, June 28, 2002


12:00 - 13:00 Registration

14:00 - 14:15 Cornelia Berens, Welcome remarks

14:15 - 15:15 Plenary session 1
Individual and collective trauma: conceptual considerations

Bernhard Giesen, The trauma of perpetrators. The Holocaust as the traumatic reference of German national identity

Plenary discussion
Chair: David Becker


15:15 - 15:30 Coffee break


15:30 - 16:45 Plenary session 2
Trauma, memory and history

Joern Ruesen, Crisis, trauma and identity
Allan Young, An alternative history of posttraumatic stress disorder

Plenary discussion
Chair: Dori Laub


16:45 - 17:15 Coffee break


17:15 - 19:15 Working group session / running parallel

  1. Transgenerational transmission of trauma
    Chair: Ilany Kogan

    Ira Brenner, Trauma, transmission and time
    Marion Oliner, The Nazi hunter
    Annette Streeck-Fischer, What is transmission of trauma?
    Uri Yaron, A space for children«s need to mourn. A multidimentional psychotherapic group

  2. Traumatic history: speaking the void in literature
    Chair: Cornelia Berens

    Birgit R. Erdle, The rhetoric of the void and its ambiguities
    Geoffrey H. Hartman, Trauma within the limits of literature
    Sven Kramer, Talking around trauma: on the relationship between trauma, narration, and catharsis in literature
    Anja Lemke, How to speak? Non-semantic representation of the Shoah in the writings of Paul Celan

  3. Cultural context and the difficulty of conceptualizing trauma
    Chair: Sibylle Rothkege

    Hubertus Adam, Trauma and reconciliation - implications for therapy and politics with children afflicted by war and persecution
    Victor Igreja, "Why are there many drums playing until the dawn?" Exploring the role of local resources on war trauma recovery: The Gambas, a new type of healers in postwar Gorongosa, Mozambique central
    Johan Lansen, Fifty years of working with trauma within cultural aspects: some experiences

  4. The insecure (legal) status of refugees and the vicissitudes of therapeutical help
    Chair: Marie-Luise Roessel-Cunovic

    Angelika Birck, Social and legal influences on psychotherapy with traumatized refugees
    Usche Merk, Between psychosocial support and the need for creating existential security. Adding an international perspective
    Klaus Ottomeyer, Psychotherapy with traumatized refugees
    Martine Verwey, Bicultural health promotion groups with traumatized refugees
    Remarks: Elise Bittenbinder, Anni Kammerlander

  5. Victimhood and empowerment
    Chair:Margarete Schauer and Thomas Elbert

    Wendy Lobwein, The impact of testifying before the ICTY
    Frank Neuner, The efficacy of Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) as a treatment for PTSD for survivors of organized violence
    Michael Odenwald, Way of coping with trauma leads to further victimization and disempowerment: Combat trauma and substance abuse in members of a former liberation movement
    Susanne Schwalgin"Adoring a relic of bones" - trauma, memory and identity in the Armenian diaspora in Greece

  6. From genocide to terrorism: the outcome of collective grandiose omnipotence
    Chair: Dori Laub

    Angela Kuehner, The notion of "collective trauma"
    Catherine Merridale, Soviet perpetrators of violence in WWII
    Judit Mészáros, Some thoughts on collective traumatization and silence in the context of relational approaches. Collective traumatization - differences and similarities
    Jacques Sémelin, Ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia



19:15 - 19:30 Welcome reception


19:30 Dinner


Evening free for informal gathering




Saturday, June 29, 2002


08:00 - 8:45 Breakfast


09:00 - 10:15 Plenary session 3
The relevance of connecting genocide studies and trauma research

Eric Markusen and Jacques Sémelin, Genocide and Collective Trauma

Plenary discussion (35 min)
Chair: Peter Imbusch


10:15 - 10:30 Coffee break


10:30 - 11:45 Plenary session 4
Trauma work in crisis regions: developing and assessing quality

David Becker, Trauma work in crisis regions ... (1)
Brandon Hamber, Trauma work in crisis regions ... (2)

Plenary discussion (35 min)
Chair: Cornelia Berens


12:15 - 14:30 Lunch Break


14:30 - 19:00 Working group session 2
Continuation of working groups of the preceding afternoon
(including coffee break)


19:15 Dinner


Evening free for informal gathering




Sunday, June 30, 2002


08:00 - 8:45 Breakfast


09:00 - 10:30 Plenary session 5
Résumés from the working group chairs (or members)

Chair: David Becker


10:30 - 10:45 Coffee break


10:45 - 12:15 Plenary session 6
The silence of trauma and its impact through the generations - an encounter with terrorism

Ilany Kogan, The silence of trauma ... (1)
Dori Laub, The silence of trauma ... (2)

Chair: Cornelia Berens


12:15 - 14:00 Lunch and close of the International Trauma Research Net Conference


[All those interested are welcome to watch the World Cup Final on Sunday at 1:00 pm on a large screen in the auditorium of the Wilhem-Kempf-Haus.]



 
 
Conference objective
  Conference schedule
  Speakers
 
Speakers

Dr. med. Hubertus Adam, department for child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy, outpatient clinic for refugee children and their families, University Clinic of Hamburg Eppendorf.

Dr. David Becker, psychologist, International Academy for Innovative Education, Psychology and Economy at the Free University of Berlin (INA gGmbH), Berlin. Member of the steering committee for this conference.

Cornelia Berens, M.A., literary historian and editor of the TRN-Newsletter, Hamburg. Executive member of the steering committee for this conference.

Dr. phil. Angelika Birck, Mag., psychologist, staff member of Berlin Center for the Treatment of Torture Victims (BZFO). Finished in 2001 a doctoral thesis on the process of working through experiences with sexual violence in childhood. Her main areas of work are research accompanying psychotherapy, political and social conditions for political refugeed in Germany.

Elise Bittenbinder, staff member of Xenion Berlin, Psychotherapeutic Advice Centre for Refugees. Bittenbinder is president of the German "Bundesweite Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Psychosozialen Zentren fuer Fluechtlinge und Folteropfer (BAFF)".

Ira Brenner, MD, is the executive director and a training and supervising analyst at the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute. He is a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He has written extensively on the subject of psychic trauma.

Dr. phil. Mihran Dabag*, director of the Institute for Research on Diaspora and Genocide at the Ruhr-University, Bochum. Member of the steering committee for this conference.

Prof. Thomas Elbert, professor for clinical psychology, behavioral neuroscience and biomagnetism at the University of Konstanz, founding member of VIVO international.

Dr. phil. Birgit R. Erdle, research assistant at "Institut fuer Deutsche Philologie, Allgemeine Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft", Technical University Berlin. Working on her "Habilitationsschrift" on "Trauma. Geschichte einer Gedaechtnisfigur in Literatur und Philosophie".

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Giesen, Department of Sociology at the University of Constance. Research on collective identity, nation-building, memory and cultural trauma. In this context the research is focusing on the historical change of remembrance rituals with regard to the conflicts between triumph and trauma.

Brandon Hamber, research associate and consultant, Belfast. Worked as a clinical psychologist in South Africa, now with various organisations in Northern Ireland. Honorary fellow at the School of Psychology at the Queens University in Belfast.

Geoffrey H. Hartman, Sterling professor emeritus of English and Comparative Literature, Yale University. Prof. Hartman also co-founded the Fortunoff Video Archives of Holocaust Testimonies and has written extensively on literary and moral questions related to the Holocaust.

Victor Igreja, psychologist, pedagogue, medical anthropologist and trauma researcher at a Mozambican NGO, Associação Esperança para Todos (AEPATO). AEPATO operates in the former war zones of Mozambique central developing a community-based project on "war memories and individual and community recovery strategies."

PD Dr. Peter Imbusch, sociologist at Marburg University, currently associated with Bielefeld University as a founding member of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence, in collaboration with Wilhelm Heitmeyer.

Anni Kammerlander, managing director of Refugio Muenchen, which provides treatment for victims of torture and traumatized refugees.

Ilany Kogan, MA, training analyst of the Israel Psychoanalytic Society, supervisor of the Center for Psychotherapy for Child and Adolescent, Bucharest, Romania. Member of the steering committee for this conference.

Dr. phil. habil. Sven Kramer, literary historian, reader at the Fachbereich Kulturwissenschaften at Lueneburg University. From August 2002 visiting associate professor at the German and History Department of the University of Toronto.

Angela Kuehner, Dipl.-Psych., PhD student at the department of social psychology, University of Munich. She is currently writing a report, funded by the "Berghof Center for Constructive Conflict Management" (Berlin), which aims at a better understanding of the impact of "collective trauma"/"man made desaster" on peacemaking and peacebuilding processes.

Dr. Johan Lansen, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and group psychotherapist, former director of the Sinai Centrum (Europees Centrum voor joodse geestelijke gezondheidscentrum en psychotraumatische-behandeling), Amersfoort, Netherlands. Member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, clinical supervisor.

Dori Laub, MD is associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale University and a psychoanalyst in private practice. Laub is currently acting director for Trauma Studies at the Genocide Studies Program at Yale, where he founded the Fortunoff Video Archives of Holocaust Testimonies in 1981. Member of the steering committee for this conference.

Dr. phil. Anja Lemke, studied German and Spanish literature, philosophy, and political science in Freiburg, Madrid and Hamburg. Dissertation in 2001 about Heidegger and Celan. After three years at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, Lemke is currently working in the Institute for Cultural Studies in Essen.» » »

Wendy Lobwein, an Australian social worker and counsellor/advocate, founding member of the "Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture". Lobwein joined the Victim and Witness Section (VWS) of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), The Hague, in 1995 as the Sections first Support Officer.

Prof. Eric Markusen, PhD, professor of sociology and social work at the University of Minnesota, research director of the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Copenhague, Denmark. Member of the steering committee for this conference.

Usche Merk, Dipl.-Paed. (Masters in Education), and post-grad degree in "Education and International Development", since 1989 project coordinator on Southern Africa at medico international, Frankfurt, Germany. Since 1995 head of psychosocial programmes at medico international, integrating practical project support with conceptional debates about the development of contextual psychosocial approaches.

Catherine Merridale, reader in European history at Bristol University. She specialises in modern Russian cultural and social history. Her publication on the topic: "Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Russia" (2000).

Judit Mészáros was born in Budapest, Hungary. Training analyst of the Hungarian Psychoanalytic Society. Clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, group psychoanalyst. Founding member (1988) and President of the Sándor Ferenczi Society (1999-). Member of the Trauma Group of European Psychoanalytical Federation.

Frank Neuner, Dipl.-Psych., managing director of vivo Germany, currently research associate and psychotherapist at the Center for Psychiatry Reichenau, has done extensive work with torture survivors and African and Balkan refugees.

Michael Odenwald, Dipl.-Psych., neuropsychologist, affiliated with the University of Konstanz & vivo associate, is currently managing a field mission in Somaliland after many years of clinical experiences and research studies in PTSD with excombatants.

Marion Michel Oliner, PhD, psychologist, New York City. Oliner is one of the authors of the renowned book "Generations of the Holocaust" (1982).

Prof. Klaus Ottomeyer, professor of social psychology at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. Work as a psychotherapist employing psychodrama. Current research interests: right-wing extremism, psychodrama and refugees.

Kristin Platt*, Dipl.-Soz., principle investigator at the Institute for Research on Diaspora and Genocide at Ruhr-University Bochum. Member of the steering committee for this conference.

Prof. Dr. Jan Philipp Reemtsma*, professor in German literature, University of Hamburg. Founder and executive director of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research. Member of the steering committee for this conference.

Marie-Luise Roessel-Cunovic, Dipl.-Paed., family therapist. She co-founded Frankfurter Arbeitskreis fuer Trauma und Exil (FATRA) in 1993 and since 1996, she heads FATRA´s project offering counseling and treatment for traumatized refugees.

Sibylle Rothkegel, Dipl.-Psych., Gestalt therapist. Former assistant director of the Berlin Center for the Treatment of Torture Victims (BZFO), since February 2002 working with traumatized war survivors in Sierra Leone ("Dienste in UEbersee/Service Overseas"). Member of the steering committee for this conference.

Prof. Dr. Joern Ruesen, historian, president of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities at the Scientific Center of Northrhine Westfalia, Essen. Published on Holocaust memory and about "Crisis, Trauma, Identity".

Dr. Margarete Schauer, Director Scientific Committee VIVO international; University of Konstanz (Psychotraumatology & Clinical Psychology) and NIMH CSEA, University of Florida, USA

PD Dr. Christian Schneider*, sociologist and research analyst, until last year staff member of the Frankfurt Sigmund Freud Institute. Major research: transgenerational transmission of unconscious dispositions in the wake of the collapse of civilization, psychoanalytic history of generations. Member of the steering committee for this conference.

Susanne Schwalgin, ethnologist, Hamburg. Currently finishing her PhD study on the remembrance of the Armenian Genocide and its relevance for identity politics.

Jacques Sémelin, political scientist, research director CADIS/CNRS. He is currently teaching a transdisciplinary course on "Analyzing Genocides and Mass Killing" at the "Institut d'Etudes Politiques" in Paris.

Dr. med. Annette Streeck-Fischer, director of the department for clinical psychotherapy of children and adolescents in Tiefenbrunn hospital, Rosdorf near Goettingen.

Martine Verwey, lic. phil. I, medical anthropologist, scientific staff member of Stiftung vom Roten Kreuz Zurich-Fluntern, Switzerland. Editor of "Trauma and Empowerment", co-editor of "Traumatizations of Refugees and Asylum Seekers: The Relevance of the Political, Social and Medical Context".

Dr. Uri Yaron, clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst, Tel-Aviv. Dr. Yaron is senior clinical psychologist and supervisor of the psychological clinic within in the department of the dean of students, Tel-Aviv-University; secretary of the New Israeli Jungian Society, in charge of the program for psychotherapy in Jungian orientation in Seminar-Hakibutzim College, Tel-Aviv.

Allan Young, Ph.D., professor of anthropology, McGill University, Montreal. Currently fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin/Institute for Advanced Study, doing research on "Traumatic memory as a style of reasoning in psychiatry and western culture".


(* = steering committee members who are unable to attend)


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Conference objective
  Conference schedule
  Speakers
 

For further information please contact

Cornelia Berens, MA
Trauma Research Net
c/o Hamburg Institute for Social Research
Mittelweg 36
D-20148 Hamburg
Tel +49 40 41 40 97-38
Fax +49 40 41 40 97-501 (or -11)
Email Cornelia_Berens@his-online.de
URLs http://www.traumaresearch.net, http://www.his-online.de


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