[The search for historical truth: psychotherapeutic work with Bosnian refugees]

The trauma haunting refugees from ex-Yugoslavia is inextricably bound up with complex processes of historical change. In order to be able to understand and treat their severe psychic problems, psychotherapists have to go in search of the historical truth, which is frequently masked by myths and obsolete notions. Only when a psychotherapist who has received the relevant interdisciplinary schooling acknowledges the existence of completely new historical experiences can s/he provide effective support for Bosnian Muslims fleeing "ethnic cleansing" and attempting to achieve self-healing, learning and growth after such an extreme form of collective and individual destruction. In this way the psychotherapist becomes an initiated listener and a unique witness of a form of historical truth that for the traumatized patients themselves is at first entirely or largely beyond recall and comprehension.