Psychology in the Time of Genocide: Toward a Therapeutic Practice That Rejects Complicity and Preserves Meaning with Shaza Abu Dayah
Coastal Lines Press author Shaza Abu Dayah examines the limitations of classical clinical psychology during genocide and calls for a therapeutic practice grounded in justice, liberation, and the preservation of human dignity.
Livestream available worldwide. Video call link: https://meet.google.com/bby-crur-knj
Free registration. To support Shaza, please consider purchasing a copy of her zine by contributing to her fundraiser.
Programme Outline:
Introduction (Beyond the Clinic):
Deconstructing the illusion of "clinical neutrality" in the context of genocide and explaining how neutrality turns into soft complicity with the killing machine.
Moving from the classical clinic to the reality of the field, where "reality" itself is the aggressor.
Critiquing Western Centrism in Trauma Diagnosis:
Critiquing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) and its underlying assumptions of stability as a normative state.
The concept of "structural trauma" instead of transient traumatic events, and the impossibility of applying traditional therapeutic protocols (such as CBT or EMDR) in their rigid forms under ongoing bombardment.
Entangled Trauma and the Existential Politics of Symptoms:
Examining "entangled and intersectional trauma" that links historical Nakba trauma with immediate loss and daily existential anxiety.
Re-reading the survivor's "symptoms" (such as hyper-vigilance) not as a disorder, but as "proactive intelligence" and a rational act of survival in an environment targeted for erasure.
Orphaned Loss and the Politics of Erasure:
Confronting the pain of loss without graves or farewell rituals, and the consequences of lacking temporal space for mourning.
The role of the psychotherapist as a "guardian of traces" and a "clinical historian" who preserves names and stories against attempts to obliterate identity and memory.
The Psychotherapist: From Clinical Neutral to Ethical Witness:
Dropping clinical neutrality and strictly refusing to reduce human pain into deaf diagnostic codes (ICD or DSM).
Building a "psychology as a praxis of justice and liberation" that stands with the human being in the trench of protecting an unyielding inner dignity.
Conclusion and Collective Epistemological Responsibility:
Rejecting patronizing pity in favor of "total and responsible recognition" of the profession's political and ethical dimensions.
Calling upon the academic and global sphere to break the silence and carry the causes of the oppressed into psychological institutions and syndicates.
About
Shaza Abu Daya
A writer, human rights activist, psychologist, and sign language interpreter from Gaza. She writes to document the Palestinian reality and the violations committed by the occupation, striving to give voice to her people. Her words aim to preserve their memory and archive their history, serving as a testament that the Palestinian people have never abandoned their land. She is the author of What the Cameras Couldn’t Capture, a zine published by Coastal Lines Press, and of several books that have been translated into Spanish.