Psychological Retraumatization of Torture Victims in the Trial Process

This study was to explore the psychological retraumatization of victims of political violence. Three participants were personally interviewed, and a focused group interview was conducted. According to qualitative analysis, all the interviews were recorded and analyzed categorically for the traumatic experiences. The findings revealed difficulties of the participants in emotional, cognitive, and social domains. Emotional issues included the difficulty in anger control, sense of alienation and isolation from families and so on. Cognitive issues were related to sense of betrayal with wrong social stigma formulated in the trial process. Social difficulties were mainly struggles with family members. Victims who suffered political violence such as torture need self-help groups to share similar experiences with for ultimate recovery and healing. Helping torture victims should not only include legal aspects but also expand the assistance to many layers of advocacy in order to prevent any further retraumatization for already trauma victims.