Toward a Model of Family and Political Victimization: Implications for Treatment and Recovery

Abstract

Political violence, in any of its ugly guises, has a devastating and long-lasting effect on its victims. This effect derives, in my view, from the concurrence of two factors: (1) the physical and emotional violence is perpetrated by the very agencies of society (such as the police and the armed forces) entrusted with the care and protection of individuals, with maintaining order in their world, with enforcing stability, and predictability; and (2) a context or a discourse that destroys or mystifies meanings so that recognition of that shift from protection to violence is blurred.