Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

army and police and denied or minimized the relevance of the presence of
Serb paramilitary units in Kosovo can be read in all of its psychological,
social and political relevance.
The combination of these three dynamics, self-victimization, negation and
conspiracy projection, might be considered both consistent with and sustaining
the fantasy of moral perfection and superiority of a collective/
narcissistic subject. By experiencing events in these terms, the narcissist
subject can be seen as unconsciously trying to protect his or her own
psychological equilibrium from the anxiety that emerged both from the
collapse of a moral and cognitive order, and from the subconscious return
of some repressed complexes, evoked by perturbing (uncanny) events and
discourses present in the social and cultural field. In this light, it is important
to underline that it is usually those people originating from a patriarchal
rural environment (thus usually lacking continuative and prolonged
social interaction with Albanians), who tend to be most vulnerable to the
internalization and transmission of conspiracy theories and homogenous
discourses of ethnic hatred. Urbanized people, who had experienced coexistence
for a long time, tended to be less adamant in their rejection of
responsibility, and less virulent in their demonization of the Albanian
enemy.
Having analysed the social and psychological implications of the use of
narratives of conspiracy, denial and self-victimization in the social construction
of meaning in relation to social antagonism and conflict, in the
next section I will try to articulate the way these dynamics influence and
shape the experience and understanding of suffering and healing as they
are framed within Serb IDPs cultural horizon of daily experience.
Sections D and E
Psychosocial Notebook, Volume 2, October 2001
In sections D and E, it was suggested that the interviewers discuss the following:
D – Pathologizing life: coping strategies and the emergence of suffering in
individual, familiar, generational, gender, and collective dimensions of
life.
E – Narratives and discourses of suffering and healing in relation to the
sociocultural and historical environment.
Questions were formulated, and answered thus:
8 (d) Have you or any member of your family or any of your friends
experienced distress?
How has it been? What means have been used to cope with it?
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