Therapeutic/metaphoric cards - a new method for healing

摘要

As family therapists, we are often faced by dire circumstances that threat the fine fabric of the family system. We wonder ever so often at the inner strength that holds the family together in face of trauma and crisis that are intense beyond words. Our experience bears evidence that the family as a social system is a crucial resource for recuperation from crisis.At the same time we are also aware of the dangers that are involved in every crisis. The breakdown of traditional family and community structures by direct victimization, death, displacement or poverty often results in inner changes, such as "role reversals", meaning the shifting of adults' role over to youngsters. This results in parents' loss of control over their children, with radical implications for children's rehabilitation in the post-trauma era. Additional stress factors emerge when parental distress triggers violence in the homes. Traumatic events such as death, injury and poverty increase the likelihood of violence against women and children. Paradoxically, when men feel that they fail to protect their women and children, they may over-compensate by exercising violent control over them at home. Mothers who may be the sole survivors of war or terror, are often brutalized and abused, and their children take the brunt.