Hi Mike, You sitting comfortably? This may take some time, so go get yourself a snack or something to munch on.... You have been warned....!! (Written in a bit of a hurry, so please excuse any oversights/mistakes).. I'm currently in my final year (BSc Joint Psychology/Social Anthropology) and hence just starting down this particular route. I'll try and answer all of your queries as best I can. Those I can't deal with at the moment will have to wait till I get further down the road, like PhD level...! >Q2) I would agree with you that any casework system that requires >torture victims to run a gauntlet of checkpoints -- at any one of which >they might be tortured again -- in order to receive treatment for >torture trauma is unsupportable and ought to be changed. Have you been >able to piece together how such a system evolved? Through necessity and the absence of any form of psychological intervention in the Island. Psychology as a discipline was only recently introduced (late 1980's I think). There are 30 psychiatrists and 3 psychologists in the country, full stop. And most of THEM are based in the major cities. In the Eastern war zone, where large areas are controlled by the LTTE (Tamil separatists),the health infrastructure collapsed in 1989-90, when 80% of the population was displaced. All those who could have served as spokespersons and peace advocates (i.e. doctors, lawyers, teachers etc) left in a mass exodus. Violence was intensifying and militant groups were beginning extortion practices. What used to be the law courts is now the Brigadier s headquarters (the Third Brigade, that began its de facto military rule in 1990). Even where there IS some sort of health infrastructure operating, there is no referral system as far as 'mental health' issues are concerned. I only came across one Psychiatrist who is attempting to integrate local customs and Western psychiatric/psychological theories. (see below for details) >...in the current context due to bureaucratic inertia Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't 'inertia' a word that implies uniform motion in a straight line...?! >"funders overseas" The problem is that in a vast majority of cases, it is the organisations funded from overseas, that go looking for those traumatised by war, not the other way round. There is no government funding (that I know of) at present. As far as psychological interventions... All the awareness programmes and training sessions, aimed at doctors and nurses trained in the Western style, will have little impact if the Sinhalese patients [149 lines left ... full text available at <url:http://www.reference.com/cgi-bin/pn/go?choice=message&table=05_1997&mid=3276469&hilit=HYPNOSIS> ] -------------------------------- Article-ID: 05_1997&3286766 Score: 80 Subject: Re: past life regression questions...