for those of you with research interests in expressions of distress, health-seeking behaviour, and the provision of mental health and psychosocial support in contexts of war and conflict, this might be interesting:
I have just started a new Blog“Symptomspeak”(http://symptomspeak.com). The stories that I am publishing on it draw on the intimate testimonies of women survivors of the Kosovo War which reveal how the experience of living through one of the darkest moments in this country’s history has impacted on their lives. These stories tell of mass atrocities, expulsion and loss, of violence, hardship and horror, and of adversity, survival and hope. They don’t simply tell us what we already know or repeat commonly held notions of national history. Instead, these women bravely question these dominant framings by bringing to light hidden or even jettisoned versions of their country’s past, of a fragile political system and of a possible future as an independent State.
I group the stories into three distinct categories to highlight the women’s memories of violence and hardship, embodied expressions of distress and what it takes to heal the inner wounds of war.