Irish Association Talk: Transforming Societies

I will be speaking at the Irish Association for Cultural, Economic and Social Relations autumn lunch on Saturday 12th Sept 2015, 12.30-1.00. My topic is 'Transforming Societies After Political Violence: Reflections on Truth, Reconciliation and Healing in South Africa and N Ireland'. Using personal experience from engagement with victims and survivors during the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, and peacebuilding work in Northern Ireland, the lecture will delve into the complex interplay between individual psychological processes and macro-political interventions such as truth commissions. Specifically the lecture will explore issues such as reparations, “doing justice”, the power of ambivalence, and concepts such as closure, trauma and reconciliation setting out the role of transitional justice, human rights and mental health practitioners in helping survivors move beyond the toxic past without covering it up or becoming mired. The lecture will take place at Stephen's Green-Hibernian Club, 9 Stephen's Grn, Dublin 2. For Details, click here.

Transformar las sociedades despues de la violencia politica

I am delighted to announced that the Spanish translation of my book "Transforming Societies after Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation, and Mental Health" is now available.

The blurb in Spanish notes:

Este libro aborda el papel de la salud mental en la justicia durante las transiciones. El lugar principal lo ocupan los y las supervivientes de la violencia y sus problemas y, sobre todo, el relato de cómo el proceso individual (micro) de sobrellevar una atrocidad se relaciona con el proceso político (macro) de gestionar el pasado. Parte de la premisa de que la forma de tratar el impacto de la violencia política es inseparable del contexto social. Se intenta demostrar que para muchos supervivientes de una traumatización política extrema, la curación está directamente relacionada con los conceptos interdependientes de verdad, justicia y reparaciones, y también con sus propios intentos de configurar la sociedad. Este enfoque amplio con respecto a la salud mental espera promover un replanteamiento útil tanto para los y las profesionales de la salud mental como para los y las que trabajan en la justicia en períodos de transición. ISBN: 978-8472905375 Edicions Bellaterra 2011

You can purchase the book on Amazon (UK) or Amazon (Spain).

My book launch in New York

My book launch in New York on 11 November 2009 went really well in New York. A "conversation" about the book with about 50 people. Also inputs from Graeme Simpson, Ruti Teitel, Alastair Ager. Chaired and organised by Jack Saul (thanks Jack). Great to also see some CSVR people.

New York Launch: Transforming Societies After Political Violence

My new book Transforming Societies After Political Violence will be launched in New York on 11 November 2009 at Columbia University. For details see Download invitation.

Transforming Societies after Political Violence

My book Transforming Societies After Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation and Mental Health, now published by Springer in New York.

Transforming Societies after Political Violence offers a template for those tasked with providing truth, justice, reconciliation, and healing. This interdisciplinary study identifies complex relationships between recovery from political violence and the psychological processes that accompany widespread social change, showing how these can be integrated to strengthen both individual and society. Author Brandon Hamber draws on his extensive experience in South Africa and comparative examples from elsewhere to examine the centrality of mental health issues in transitional justice, and the social, cultural, and identity issues involved in meeting the needs of victims. In discussing reparations (what the author terms "repairing the irreparable"), the power of ambivalence, and especially concepts of closure, he eloquently sets out professionals’ roles in helping survivors move beyond the toxic past without covering it up or becoming mired in it. ISBN: 978-0-387-89426-3, Springer 2009

Available

Springer (Publisher)
Springer Online
Amazon (UK)
Amazon (US)

Endorsements
How to victims heal? We should not be too quick to presume. Those seeking truth and justice often prioritize victims’ interests – but without always fully understanding what those interests and needs are, or how different victims may recover in very different ways. Based on fifteen years of working with and listening to victims and survivors, Brandon Hamber helps us better understand the mental health backdrop to atrocity and recovery. With plentiful, poignant stories, and clear policy recommendations, this book should help shape – and greatly improve – future endeavors to confront unimaginable memories and pain (Priscilla Hayner, International Centre for Transitional Justice and author of Unspeakable Truths: confronting state terror and atrocity)

Brandon Hamber nails this tricky subject with humility, insight, learned insight, and golden recommendations..... if you are interested in how humans try to grapple with the consequences of man’s brutality to man, and ultimately the truth, read it! (Thulani Grenville-Grey, former South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Mental Health Specialist)

Brandon Hamber's experience in multiple sites of transitional justice work, and his rare ability to bridge the academic and theoretical with the practical and logistical, ensures this publication is an extremely valuable contribution and a must read to those working in this fast evolving field (Piers Pigou, former South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Investigator and Director of the South African History Archive).

Brandon Hamber has written a challenging and good interdisciplinary book, which will not only be helpful to those dealing with mental health issues during transitions from conflict, but also to lawyers and those concerned with conflict resolution more generally (Christine Bell, Director, Institute of Transitonal Justice, University of Ulster)

How countries recover from political atrocity is a question that has confronted dozens of regimes around the world for decades. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is an iconic symbol of what for some is a profound achievement in restructuring a “peaceful society.” In Transforming Societies After Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation, and Mental Health Dr. Brandon Hamber applies his many years of experience both within the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and beyond it to a careful analysis of the complex issues – legal, historical, social, psychological - embedded in such a process. It is his astute attention to these complexities that make his book so rich. Hamber says that “if the TRC process and working with the victims appearing before it taught me anything it was that the psychological life of the survivor of extreme violence is cut through by this complexity." His work is clear testimony to that statement Transforming Societies After Political Violence is a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, scholars and policy makers. If you read one book about countries emerging from their violent pasts, it should be Dr. Brandon Hamber’s Transforming Societies After Political Violence. I will rely on this volume in my ongoing work and I predict it will become a definitive text in this area (Nina K. Thomas, Ph.D., ABPP, Chair, Specialization in Trauma and Disaster Studies; NYU Postdoctoral program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; Co-Chair, Relational Orientation; NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis)

Hamber brings an acute clinical sensibility and sophisticated research mind to a complex problem: state handling of reconciliation after a catastrophic upheaval. … his main focus in this book is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) process. … a must read for any psychologist working with trauma survivors, especially postconflict trauma survivors. It calls upon a rich literature–from psychoanalysis … to trial transcripts of commissions; it integrates all these sources to provide a truly unique contribution to the psychology of trauma." (Don Dutton, PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 54 (47/3), November, 2009)