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The Experience of Contemporary Peacekeepers Healing from Trauma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2020

S. Ray*
Affiliation:
Nursing, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada

Abstract

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This research study was an interpretive inquiry into the experience of contemporary peacekeepers healing from trauma. Ten contemporary peacekeepers were interviewed who have sought treatment for trauma resulting from deployments to Somalia, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia. A thematic analysis of the text was undertaken in which themes emerged to document and understand the ways in which contemporary peacekeepers suffer while healing from trauma. Narratives from the transcribed interviews were reviewed with the participants and reflective journaling by the researcher provided further clarification of the data to understand the experience. The peacekeepers’ descriptions of the situatedness of their bodies in time, space and relation provided a fresh way into understanding the embodied nature of suffering while healing from trauma. Three overarching themes: the centrality of brotherhood and grieving loss in the military family; the centrality of time and the body in suffering while healing from trauma; and the military response as betrayal and creating trauma from within emerged from the inquiry which will contribute to more effective practice guidelines for the care of contemporary peacekeepers suffering and healing from trauma.

Type
P03-263
Copyright
Copyright © European Psychiatric Association 2009
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