Traumatized Refugee Parents and Infants Considered from Within and Without: The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars as Unexpected Legacies of the September 11th Attacks 20 Years Later

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper marks the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It makes the link between the author’s research, which explored the impact of those events on intergenerational trauma and traumatic stress, and the clinical dilemmas that the author encountered in treating Iraqi and Afghan refugees presently. Importantly, the refugee status of these patients was in part linked to the retaliatory actions of the United States in the wake of 9/11. The original hypotheses from the 2003 book, September 11: Trauma and Human Bonds are reviewed with previously unreported clinical vignettes that were a part of the author’s research. The impact of the author’s own experiences is highlighted as he approaches his psychotherapeutic work with Iraqi and Afghan postwar refugees in Switzerland. The author presents two case examples of patients in psychoanalytically oriented parent-infant psychotherapy. He demonstrates how trauma, attachment, development, and ruptures of intersubjectivity between parent and infant as well as between parent-infant dyad and analyst must be considered in the treatment of these complex cases.