Psychopathology of Collective Violence / Psychopathologie des violences collectives

Wars are no longer fought against armies but against civilian populations. The goal is not to break through the enemy's defences in order to impose your terms but to terrorise the population so as to destroy it.Collective violence ? whether in the form international or civil war ? produces psychological trauma among the aggressors as well as the victims, making the return to a normal life impossible if the trauma goes untreated.Françoise Sironi is an internationally recognised specialist in intentionally inflicted trauma arising from collective violence. She is the creator of a new discipline, geopolitical psychology, which aims to study and treat this new facet of international relations.In this book, she describes cases she has treated, how trauma is intentionally inflicted, and how history can take over iedividual lives. She also explains the forms of treatment she has developed to facilitate resilience.Collective violence is a daily occurrence worldwide. This book provides the necessary elements to understand it: What are the aims of collective forms of violence? What is an intentionally inflicted trauma? How are entire populations terrorised?The author, who has treated survivors of the Khmer Rouge and worked with trauma victims in Kosovo and Chechnya, tells a harrowing tale of violence in human relations and shows how history can wreak havoc in iedividual lives.Françoise Sironi is a lecturer in clinical psychology and psychopathology at the University of Paris-VIII and teaches geopolitical psychology at the Institut d?Etudes Politiques, in Paris. She is the co-founder of the Centre Primo Levi, which specialises in the treatment of torture victims, and of a rehabilitation centre for Russian veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and in Chechnya.