The Trauma of Testifying

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is an attempt to deal with the violence of the past and to break the silence of human rights violations. The enabling legislation and some of the decisions of the commission itself have given the process a legalistic slant, but the underlying dynamic concerns psychological injury and prospects for healing - of individuals and South African society as a whole.

The Act that brought the commission into being charges the TRC with particular responsibility towards the care of survivors. The commission appointed briefers and debriefers to assist survivors at public hearings and to refer deponents for additional support. But the commission has been unable to provide direct psychological services to all deponents (testifiers, statement givers and amnesty applicants), as this task did not form part of its mandate.

In response to this limitation, and as early as 1995, elements of civil society (individuals, NGOs and academic institutions) as well as certain state mental health groups have followed the implementation of the TRC and made several suggestions as to the psychological care of deponents. The Trauma Centre for Victims of Violence and Torture organised a series of workshops in 1995 and 1996 to make mental health workers aware of the plight of survivors and to develop a critique of the unfolding process. From these workshops emerged the idea of the Mental Health Response to the TRC.

The Mental Health Response (MHR) is a network of mental health professionals - including psychologists, social workers and institutions in the state and non-governmental sector - prepared to offer psychological support services to deponents and their families in the Western Cape to fill the critical gap in the process for those who have suffered. The MHR formed a partnership with the TRC, where the TRC refers clients for ongoing psychological support. The Trauma Centre for Victims of Violence and Torture forms part of this network and also acts as the central referral agent for the MHR.

A catharsis of emotions - in public and private

The TRC has brought into sharp public focus the extreme forms of violence and abuse that many South Africans have been subjected to over the last 30 years. Public testimonies of torture, kidnapping, murder, mutilation and assault have been attended by many thousands of people and widely reported in the media.

Those who actually make written statements, give public spoken testimony or apply for amnesty have generally experienced deeply traumatic events - whether they were at the receiving end of acts of gross human rights abuses or whether they committed such acts. At one level, the collective body of deponents to the TRC represent the collective experience of this society in terms of the trauma associated with apartheid.

There is a popular assumption that the TRC provides the space for a cathartic release of emotions that can form the basis for psychological healing - for individual deponents and for society as a whole. But this is questionable. Can we talk about individual healing in the same breath as national healing? Are the processes different or the same?

If we speak of helping individuals and society to 'heal' we must have at least a working definition of the ailment or injury; we must be sure that the 'cure' leaves the afflicted individual or society better and not worse off. In attempting to answer this question, it is crucial to establish whether there is a valid comparison between the cognitive and therapeutic processes that affect the 'society' and the 'individual'. It will behelpful to start with individuals referred by the TRC to the Trauma Centre for counselling.

Post-traumatic stress disorder

People who testify or give statements to the TRC are survivors of horrific traumas and violence, and many of these people are coping well with the stresses which they have endured. But a large number of people have never had the opportunity to seek professional counselling and have identified their own need for assistance. Seeking counselling is a positive, healthy sign of coming to terms with their difficult experiences. Counselling provides an opportunity to understand and work through the symptoms of their trauma.

These symptoms may include anger (aggressive outbursts or uncontrollable anger); problematic interpersonal relationships; depression; lack of self-confidence; general distrust in others; recurrent thoughts relating to the traumatic incident; social withdrawal; perceived lack of control (feelings of helplessness); nightmares or bad dreams; emotional numbing; physiological problems (headaches, body pains); hyper-vigilance; and self-medication (alcohol, drugs, painkillers).

Rarely is it possible to attach all these symptoms directly or exclusively to the original traumatic event or violation. In fact, many deponents have had to face, both in the past and present, a complex matrix of issues with a psycho-social dimension - including unresolved bereavement, the demise of a supportive 'struggle community', intense feelings of abandonment by the new political leadership, and often crippling poverty and unemployment. Dealing with the trauma of the past often involves unpacking the problems of the present, too.

Breaking the silence

In Cape Town, for instance, many of those who seek counselling after the Truth commission process report that this is the first time they have spoken about the psychological impact of the original violation. There are many reasons why survivors have never had this opportunity to speak out, to break their silence before now. Firstly, the political repression of the past did not allow activists, soldiers or others the emotional space to talk about their detention, their imprisonment, their torture, or their combat experiences in safe, supportive environments. It rather encouraged the closing off and shutting down of personal emotions for the sake of the struggle. To speak about the psychological harm inflicted by the apartheid state would have been perceived at the time as a sign of weakness, a symbol of vulnerability, an opportunity for breaking down the opposition to apartheid.

Secondly, survivors have not spoken out before because some feel ashamed of having 'broken' or divulged information under torture and have intense feelings of guilt about having 'betrayed' comrades. The TRC has offered them a space to acknowledge publicly what took place in the torture situation. Others who have been tortured by members of the liberation movements or harmed by 'comrades' were too frightened to speak about their experiences. The TRC has offered these people a chance to speak the truth about what happened in the camps and detention centres in exile. What was unspeakable in the past is now able to be talked about in public.

Thirdly, survivors of gross violations of human rights have not spoken out in the past because they felt that their personal experience was so generalised in their communities that the violation and its psychological consequences had always been understood as collective or communal phenomena. For them, the TRC has created an opportunity to make their 'collective' experience 'individual' by making a statement or appearing at human rights violations hearings. This is another opportunity for the start of an individual process of recovery and healing, although the journey can be lonely and isolating.

Story telling - only the beginning of healing

While the TRC can provide a number of important opportunities for deponents to begin the healing process, there are also some practical limitations on how far they can help. The therapeutic treatment of trauma, for instance, generally starts with the telling and retelling of the story of what happened, and the exploration of the meaning and the emotions the survivor attaches to the traumatic event. A crucial element in this process is that the environment in which this 'story telling' takes place is safe, structured, and continuous over a period of time.

It is an open question as to whether the TRC itself is such an environment - either in its manifestation at public hearings or in the one-on-one giving and recording of statements. The TRC is formally cognisant of the sensitivities associated with 'violated' persons giving testimony and making statements. They have appointed people with a degree of training to brief and debrief those who give public testimony. However, there have been a few occasions when it seemed that reluctant individuals have been pressurised to give testimony. It appears that there may be an underlying tension between the TRC's role as a 'national therapeutic process' and its responsibility to care for the individuals who have been violated.

Re-experiencing the trauma of the past

The psychological responses of individuals who testify or give statements are mixed. Many report an initial sense of relief at having unburdened themselves. However, a worrying number of these individuals find that in the weeks following their deposition, there is a return and intensification of symptoms associated with the original violations as well as the onset of new symptoms that may be related to an actual retraumatisation caused by retelling the story. This is not an entirely unexpected phenomena. Deponents would each have built their own unique and elaborate defence mechanisms against the negative feelings associated with the original trauma. But the act of telling their story tends to collapse or weaken these defences, thereby precipitating a crisis for some individuals. It is undoubtedly one of the significant shortcomings of the TRC and the enabling legislation that inadequate provision was made for professional psychological follow-up for these individuals.

While there is no doubt that the TRC has empowered and given a voice to people that bore the brunt of apartheid repression, the process is vulnerable to the accusation that it has put survivors at risk in the interests of national healing and reconciliation. Is the emotional price of 'national healing and reconciliation' too high for the individual? Or do the benefits for the nation outweigh the mental health risks to individuals and families?

Using the language of 'victims'

The public discourse surrounding the TRC - in particular, the use of pejorative terms such as 'victim' and 'perpetrator' - have complicated the process for participants. Very few people enjoy being labelled 'victims' of gross human rights violations - for the word 'victim' implies passivity, lack of personal agency, and lack of control. The term 'survivor', however, connotes a sense of recovery, control, and empowerment. Sometimes others who appear before the TRC as 'victims' have a story to tell about their own involvement in the struggle which is not confined to the 'victim' role. But there is often not the space to disclose these truths in a role constructed for them by the TRC. Those who fall into this double category have expressed an intense need to come to terms with what they have done. Being placed in the 'victim' category restricted them from full disclosure of their experiences and left them silent again.

For the survivor of extreme torture who has built psychological defences against his or her trauma, and gone on to build a functional life, to be defined as a 'victim' is at best unhelpful and at worst profoundly disempowering. The TRC has correctly revealed the extent of suffering under apartheid, but what the evidence reveals is how remarkably and creatively many survivors have coped. This is more than semantics. The flip side of this argument, however, can be that we are creating a nation of victims, not survivors - in other words, a continued dependency. In charting future government policy towards survivors and their families, the TRC has a difficult task in developing a reparations policy that does not perpetuate a victim mentality.

Similar arguments could be made for those applying for amnesty who bear the label of 'perpetrators' of gross human rights violations. The term 'perpetrator' leaves very little room for understanding the complexities of human behaviour based on cultural backgrounds, belief systems and survival strategies. For them, the amnesty process constructs a 'perpetrator' role without opening up questions regarding their own vulnerabilities and 'victimhood'.

Perhaps questions of whether a society or community can experience 'psychological wounding' or 'come to terms with its history' are best left to moral philosophers and sociologists. There is certainly the assumption in the use of these phrases in relation to the TRC that the story of the 'nation' is more than the sum total of the individual stories of its inhabitants; the nation itself is a cognitive being. To describe the nation as a conflicted individual, traumatised by past violations, captures the common-sense notion of this stage of our history. Various parts of the nation have diametrically opposed views of the TRC process and the meaning of past human rights violations. It is not obvious that these views are gradually being reconciled. If the metaphor of the nation as a cognitive being applies, then it might be possible to argue that the TRC process has hardened some of those views and entrenched them. The hope is that history will prove that the TRC, compromised and imperfect as it is, was a necessary precondition for escaping the shackles of the past. But in the meantime it is crucial to ensure that the individuals who have been hurt in the past receive every assistance in their process of healing.

In terms of mental health care in the future, the state will bear a significant responsibility towards survivors and their families for many years to come. The TRC's Reparations and Rehabilitation Committee is in the process of making recommendations on reparations policy to government. Included are recommendations for ongoing psychological support for survivors through non-state organisations. A clear commitment from government to assist financially in this process is imperative if the healing processes - both national and individual - are to continue in any.meaningful way long after the TRC has completed its work.

Trudy de Ridder is a clinical psychologist who works for the Trauma Centre for Victims of Violence and Torture in Cape Town. She has also counselled TRC staff and provided psychological support for testifiers.

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