Resilience Model for War Psychotrauma Victims Based on African Cultural Signifiers

Clinical observations at the RAPHA-Psy Psychology Center have revealed resilience with the appearance of sociocultural adaptation in some psychotraumatized soldiers of war. This has led to an attempt to understand the role of culture in this resilience, through cultural signifiers. The study was guided by the clinical method with five resilient psycho-trauma war soldiers. The results obtained after semi-structured interviews show that among these soldiers, the work of resilience was structured around the strengthening of the link between the Soldier and the bio-lineage Family, the strengthening of the link between the Soldier and the Ancestor, the consolidation of the link between the Bio-lineage Family and the Ancestor and the emergence of the Soldier’s mastery over the Enemy. The cultural signifiers in the work of resilience therefore have a function of reconstruction and solidification of the Soldier’s links in his different existential axes. The study thus made it possible to work out a model of resilience of the psychotraumatized ones of war based on the African cultural signifiers.