In recent years Islamic terrorism has manifested itself with an unexpectedly destructive force. Even though in most cases it started locally, it has spread its terror over the whole world. In August 2014, when troops of the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” invaded areas of northern Iraq, they turned on the long-established religious minorities in the area with tremendous brutality, especially toward the Yazidi religious minority. Huge numbers of men were executed, and women and children were abducted and subjected to sexual violence. In an attempt at systematic destruction of the Yazidi community, the religious minority was to be eliminated and the will of the victims broken. The medical and mental health issues of the resulting from the combined subjective, collective, and cultural traumas, last not least followed by the migrant and refugee crisis, are extraordinary and need new and wise concepts of integrated medical care.
Transgenerational Traumatization in the Yazidi Community Available to Purchase
Jan Ilhan Kizilhan, psychologist, psychotherapist, and trauma expert, is a researcher at Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University, and dean of the Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychotraumatology at the University in Duhok/Kurdistan Region Iraq. He was the chief psychologist of the Special-Quota Project, a program funded by the state government of Baden-Württemberg. The project aims were to bring eleven hundred women and children who have been held hostage by the Islamic State to Germany for medical treatment. His main areas of research are psychotraumatology, transcultural psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy, transcultural health research, racism, radicalization, migration, refugees, and mental health. He has published more than 30 books and more than 120 studies in international journals. He has been awarded many times nationally and internationally for his work.
Jan Ilhan Kizilhan; Transgenerational Traumatization in the Yazidi Community. South Atlantic Quarterly 1 October 2024; 123 (4): 840–847. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-11381041
Download citation file:
Advertisement