Bosnians cope with memories
of war, uncertainty of life

By JORGE L. HERNANDEZ
Observer-Dispatch

When the rug gets pulled out from under, people turn for help. That’s the bottom line for many living with traumatic experiences that shatter dreams and upend lives.

For Bosnian refugees, the ethnic war back home has altered lives. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg for post-traumatic stress disorder, experts say.

“War is just one aspect. In traumatic experiences, we think of war as a battle, people being under fire,” said Judith Owens-Manley, associate director for community research at the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center at Hamilton College. “But for the Bosnians it’s about the deprivations, the uncertainty of life.

“Many Bosnians come from cities never under direct fire, but they were cut off from food, water, from stability in life in what they could control,” she said. “What they had in life is traumatic when it’s taken away.”

Owens-Manley, a clinical social worker with a private practice, and her colleague Reed Coughlan — a professor at Empire State College and a sociologist — interviewed about 100 Bosnian families in the Utica area in a 2000 study. They plan to re-interview the families and publish a book.

According to Owens-Manley, adaptation of refugees to a new country is a three-pronged process: economic, sociocultural and psychological.

“There’s economic trauma for those who were professionals in Bosnia and for older people when they come here and all that is taken away from them. They have to start all over,” she said. “They’re poor and they’ve lost status and undergo a psychological effect because they have to work so hard to adapt.”

Suvada Veiz, health services specialist at the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, provides mental health screenings for new arrivals.

Veiz said some Bosnians arrive with symptoms of depression, anxiety, sadness, flashbacks and nightmares.

“They’re reliving their experiences in the war — torture or seeing someone being killed,” she said. “Anything they saw and any event that was traumatic keeps repeating: images of war, of being chased and having to run away.”

“I was crying all the time when I first got here. It was hard to understand,” Owens-Manley said one of the Bosnians in her study said after migrating to Utica.

Besides mental or emotional symptoms, there are also physical ones — stomach disorders and headaches, Veiz said.

At the Refugee Center, once assessments are made, people are referred to mental health services for counseling, psychiatric intervention and/or medication.

Culturally, there is some reluctance among Bosnians in acknowledging a mental problem and seeking treatment.

“It’s not part of the cultural norm for Bosnians to have anyone in therapy. We might joke about folks in California having multiple therapists, but that’s not a way of life for Bosnians,” Owens-Manley said.

“For them, it hasn’t been a trend. Family, friends would be their more traditional support networks. When those are gone, then there’s additional trauma,” she said.

Veiz sees a change now in Bosnians’ aversion to seek help, in part because they see therapy helping other Bosnians cope with their memories.

“It’s hard to move on after experiencing all that,” Veiz said. “Many now realize it’s OK to ask for help.”

Therapy often involves talking about past experiences so that the memories do not become or remain emotionally crippling.

Owens-Manley quoted the work of Steven Weine, a psychiatrist who’s worked with Bosnians and is the author of “When History Is a Nightmare.” Weine writes about the value of testimonial psychotherapy. “It’s the idea of someone telling their story to serve some purpose, to be used in any fashion that will do some good,” Owens-Manley said. “It’s empowering rather than victimizing; it honors their experience by giving them and their stories credibility and importance.”

Of those who have adjustment problems, the majority are women, Veiz said, and those middle-aged or older, both Veiz and Coughlan noted.

“Younger people have so much to look forward than middle-aged or older people,” Veiz said of the adaptation ease for youths.