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Victims of disaster: can ethical debriefings be of help to care for their suffering?

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Victims of disaster: can ethical debriefings be of help to care for their suffering?

‘La douleur existe, elle est injustifiable’ (Jean-Luc Nancy).

Abstract

Victims of disaster suffer, not only at the very moment of the disaster, but also years after the disaster has taken place, they are still in an emotional journey. While many moral perspectives focus on the moment of the disaster itself, a lot of work is to be done years after the disaster. How do people go through their suffering and how can we take care of them? Research on human suffering after a major catastrophe, using an ethics of care perspective, is scarce. People suffering from disasters are often called to be in distress and their emotional difficulties ‘medicalised’. This brings them often into a situation of long term use of medication, and one can wonder if medication is of help to them in the long run. In our paper, we will explore another moral perspective, focusing on the importance of the victims’ narrative and their lived experiences. We will use Paul Ricoeur’s phenomenological reflections from ‘Suffering is not the same as pain’ for conceptualizing human suffering and how to apply it to victims of disaster. Ricoeur suggests that suffering is not a quantity that can be measured, but a characteristic that should be studied qualitatively in interpersonal and narrative contexts. Above all, the perspective of care and listening could offer an opportunity to reconcile people from their loss and suffering.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Family Medicine and Primary Healthcare, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Ignaas Devisch, Myriam Deveugele & Peter Pype

  2. Department of Psychoanalysis and Clinical Consulting, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Stijn Vanheule

  3. School of Medicine, Andrija Stampar School of Public Health, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

    Iskra Nola

  4. Department of Medical Ethics, Uludag University School of Medicine, Bursa, 16059, Turkey

    Murat Civaner

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  1. Ignaas Devisch
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  2. Stijn Vanheule
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  3. Myriam Deveugele
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  5. Murat Civaner
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  6. Peter Pype
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Correspondence to Ignaas Devisch.

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Devisch, I., Vanheule, S., Deveugele, M. et al. Victims of disaster: can ethical debriefings be of help to care for their suffering?. Med Health Care and Philos 20, 257–267 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-016-9742-1

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