Trauma counselling seems to be a hot topic in Sri Lanka right now. Multiple groups are being identified by interested parties as being in dire need of counselling. I don't doubt that. I could spend all my earnings on therapy myself, whether it will help erase the pictures in my head and the smells and screams that accompany it, I don't know. Nevertheless, this man and his colleagues are making a valiant effort to help. Or so it seems.
Dr Wanigaratne has been working on efforts to establish trauma counseling since the fateful Central Bank explosion in 1996 that brought the "war" into the heart of the capital. But it seems that the tsunami in 2004 is what has really helped get it off the ground with funding from organisations and trusts in Canada and the UK. There now exists a resource center called Samutthana. Like I said it is quite an effort that these people have put into it.
But their blatant disregard for distinctions that might exists between trauma associated with the tsunami and the war only highlights their naive approach. Dr Wanigarante and his colleague agree that "trauma is trauma". Most people sitting around the table agreed with that. But trauma arising from decades of civil war and discrimination can hardly be grouped with something like the tsunami. The blame game that goes with the war alone is enough to understand that counselling in these circumstances is not an easy task and is doomed to backfire with the current approach taken by Samutthana.
While the talk was aimed at getting academic feedback on constructing a model that might best meet the needs of the groups identified as being in need of counselling, I felt Dr Wanigaratne was their to simply promote his resource center and look for ways to raise funds. He disregarded or had answers for why all of the suggestions made by experts in the area.
I don't doubt the organisation means well, but whether they are sustainable and what will happen when funding and interest wanes and another conflict breaks out in the country is left to be seen. I say this because Dr Wanigaratne himself acknowledged that the war is over but the conflict is not!
