WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Prof. Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan*

ABSTRACT

In August 2014, when troops of the self-proclaimed ?Islamic State? conquered areas of northern Iraq, they turned on the long-established religious minorities in the area with tremendous brutality, especially towards the Yazidis. Huge numbers of men were executed, thousands upon thousands of women and children were abducted and wilfully subjected to sexual violence. The religious minority was to be eliminated and the will of the victims broken. Thousands were forced to convert and, in keeping with patriarchal traditions, the women were told by the terrorists that they were now ?dishonoured? and ?couldn‘t go back in any case?. When treating traumatised survivors of war, like the Yazidi, the therapist must take into consideration cultural and socio-political aspects, individual and collective burdens (e.g. war in homeland over many generations, gender-specific and societal disadvantages and imprisonment of family members or their disappearance), their perception of illness, how they deal with their illness and how they form relationships. In addition to an acceptance of cognitive behavioural therapy, there are language barriers and individual and psycho-social stress factors. The following contribution discusses the interaction of cultural and psycho-social factors in persons from other cultures who are undergoing cognitive behavioural therapy and makes recommendations based on this.

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