PUBLIC LECTURE ON "GENERATIONAL IMPACT OF MASS TRAUMA OF GENOCIDE"

armradio.am
29.10.2007 14:20

The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI) organizes Public Lecture
series. The main purpose of the seminar-lectures at the AGMI is the
establishment of the community of Genocide Studies scholars. Several
controversial historical, cultural, social issues will be discussed
during these lectures.

The attempted destruction of the Armenian people by the Ottoman Turkish
Government from 1895-1923 not only cost one-and-a-half million Armenian
lives but created massive trauma for many of those who survived. During
a public lecture on October 30 entitled "Generational Impact of
Mass Trauma of Genocide" Dr. Kalayjian will talk about the physical,
psychosocial, and spiritual impact of Genocide on the offspring of
survivors. The presentation will summarize several research studies
conducted in North America with the survivors of the Genocide as well
as with the offspring. When trauma is properly processed emotionally
there is a cathartic effect. Concomitantly, the presentation will
address therapeutic modalities used to process those feelings, and
transform it into healing.

Anie Kalayjian is an internationally recognized expert on the
psychological effects of trauma in disaster victims, and the author of
the authoritative handbook, Disaster & Mass Trauma: Global Perspectives
in Post Disaster Mental Health Management. She has worked extensively
with veterans of the Gulf and Vietnam wars, with survivors of the
Holocaust and Ottoman-Turkish Genocide of the Armenians, and with
survivors of earthquakes and hurricanes.

>From 1988 to 2006 she went to Armenia, California, Cyprus, Florida,
Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Turkey to assist
health professionals treating trauma cases after natural and
human made disasters and to train psychiatrists, psychologists and
general practitioners in post-trauma therapeutic interventions. With
compassion, she has dared to confront the incomprehensible, giving us
hope that those who have been damaged can one day be made whole. More
important, her ultimate vision is that through peaceful resolution,
man’s injustice to man will be prevented altogether.