THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PEACE, PEACE MAKING, PEACE KEEPING OPERATIONS, POST TRAUMATIC STRESS EVENTS AND GROWTH, STRESS AND FAMILY ARRANGEMENT

Jacob Waiswa
Situation Health Analyst
Dishma-Inc.
P.O. Box 8885,
Kampala-Uganda
Tel. +256392614655/+256752542504
dishma.imhs@gmail.com
www.situationhealthanalysis.blogspot.com

In general, peace psychology can be understood as the manipulation of the sub-disciplines of psychology across different levels of human functioning and across different disciplines to understand violence cause-effect relationships, predict it and devise interventions for sustainable peace.

Peace psychology is relatively new. It draws explanations of human behavior and interventions from clinical psychology, social psychology, developmental or personality psychology, political psychology, and others like; history, sociology and international relations –across different levels of analysis from micro to macro.

Psychology of peacemaking and peace keeping operations there fore arouses the different psychological models to explain the essence of peace making and peace keeping and derive effective actions for conflict resolution and lasting peace.

Post traumatic events are perceived by individuals as very bad, simply unacceptable and regrettable. Such events continue to occur in dreams and in social moments –where stimuli is associated to the bad past, and it goes on to disrupt person’s concentration at work, cause restlessness and bad moods.

If not treated, individual conditions turn severe and have manifestations of chronic depression, panic disorder, psychosis, and other schizophrenic type disorders. It usually calls for multi-disciplinary approach to helping patient recover –involving social workers, family, community, religious people, traditional healers, clinicians, psychologists or therapists.

Stress is a common phenomenon occurring in our day to day life that is only made to vary –according to intensity, coping ability and vulnerability of the person. Stress is labeled according to the object, situation or condition causing it –and affects person’s mental, physical, and social functioning –that may be far positively, far negatively or optimally.

Ideally optimum amount is called for –necessary to allow holistic functioning of the individual.
Systematic responses are made by family in case of an event that is perceived good or bad. The family finds it self obliged to hold parties and pray for more of them featured by certain rituals while if bad –the family organizes a time to talk, lament, and find positives from bad situation. Family arranges a ceremony of passage from the bad to good times. The good projected times are sealed with sweet talks about the future, good food for everyone and wine.

Psychology of peace, peace making, peace keeping operations, post traumatic events, stress and family arrangements can thus help us understand mental processes and behavior of people involved in conflict, the mental implications of interventions developed and effectiveness of the approaches designed towards sustainable peace from individual level to group, to family, to organizational, to society, to national, to regional and to international levels.

Peace making is a set of activities aiming at resolving conflict –which include setting equal power relationships, agreeable procedures by parties involved, creating understanding for the common destiny (peace), and reconciliation within conflicting communities.

Common activities include; mediation by neutral party, arbitration, establishment of diplomatic and economic relations, and threats or use of force. In different activities undertaken, neutrality is very critical.

The psychological implication of peace making is restructuring previously held maladaptive thoughts from worst to desirable ones –through peace talks or mediating; conditioning to derive desired behavior –through martial aid, concessions (manifesting goodwill and cooperation after reconciliation) or by enforcement of peace; desensitization –through diplomacy and opening ties between belligerents.

Other forms of behavior corrections means –attributed to psychology are peace making are trust and commitment-testing for each party in the conflict; breaking of to review importance of peace talks (hold evaluations moments); positive reinforcement –through marshal aid, mutual respect, leveled grounds for dialogue (including; diplomatic treatments, impressive dressing, and provision of different other privileges aggrieved person wishes to get in exchange for peace; and aversive conditioning through enforcement of peace.

Peace keeping operations is part of the big body of actions undertaken to realize peace. UN peace keeping was developed during the cold war era in an attempt to implement peace initiatives under the supervision of a neutral party.

Post traumatic stress events follow a history of stressors afflicting individual (or individuals) and rendering them vulnerable to negative effects of stress and unable to cope with stressful events –leading into mental and behavioral dysfunction. These conditions are experienced by all parties in a conflict –be it the peace makers, the warring sides and, above all, the ever vulnerable citizens.

Stress takes a handful of forms –depending on its source. These can be relationship stress, academic stress, economic stress, political stress, cultural stress, religious stress, environmental stress (pollution, overcrowding, and noise), skeletal stress, combat stress and disease stress. Stress is part of our existence mush as it affects us differently.

Post traumatic stress events are negative conditions and experiences within a given environment that take a toll on the individuals’ ability to function cognitively, physically, socially, and spiritually well.

The nature of the consequential dysfunction overt behaviors varies from one person to another. Such experiences can be loss of battalion colleagues during war, torture of prisoners of war, and scenes of human misery and suffering.

A family is a social nucleus consisting of father, mother, and children. In the African family type, both very close and very lose relationships along shared lineage of father and mother was regarded as family (extended family system).

Marriage of two people was marriage of two communities. Modern day careers requires that one vacates his or her parents’ home to set up his or her own, gain important skills and make accomplishments –a challenge peace makers face.

While psychology is appreciated as pivotal in understanding and predicting behavior and to facilitate peace making (and rehabilitation of affected people), peace keeping operation, its truth-revealing element pushes African dictators to the defensive and begin to fight it.

Otherwise, when applied to peace keeping operations or peace making, the discipline can bring positive changes to the individual and society and, ultimately, peace. To achieve that, mental health professionals, social workers and mental health beneficiaries, policy makers and community at large, regionally and internally each are responsible to the suffering civilians due to war; and to protect and create meaning in their lives.

Africans or humanity needs to re-discover sense of communalism –an amazing source of natural medicine –itself. For example, in case of long time illness family members and friends become key players in the healing process or in dignifying death.