Headquarters of the General Council of Psychology, Madrid (Spain)
Within the framework of the collaboration between the SEMD and the General Council of Psychology, the first "Democratic Memory Awareness Day: psychological care for victims and interveners" has been developed. It has been inaugurated by the Secretary of State, Fernando Martínez, and by the first vice-president of the Council, José Antonio Luengo. Its objective is to make known the psychological consequences of the processes of loss and mourning experienced by the victims of the Spanish War and Franco’s regime, as well as the processes of recovery of the bodies of their relatives and interveners that accompany the exhumation processes.
Integrating the loss of a loved one is an experience that demands a combination of personal, social, and community resources that will help you grieve. When this loss occurs in a traumatic and/or violent way or both, or is the result of intentional and organized violence, and it is not possible to recover the body, it becomes necessary to guarantee the support resources of the victims, given the probability of a complicated grief and the appearance of symptoms such as despair, anxiety, guilt, hostility, PTSD and others. In the same way, the people involved in the exhumation work are exposed to experiences of pain, guilt, discomfort, to situations in which to communicate bad news due to the impossibility of recovering or identifying remains that makes them vulnerable.
The day began with a fragment of the documentary "Where wheat grows higher" and the lecture of the Psychology professor of the UCM expert in trauma and grief, María Paz García Vera, "The psychological impact of loss processes in violent and traumatic circumstances and exhumation processes". After the testimony, in the first person of Santos Jiménez, in the round table "The process of reconstruction in the victims" participated Natalia Junquera, journalist of El País, Francisco Etxeberría, forensic anthropologist, Francisco Ferrándiz, social anthropologist, Carlos Martín Beristain, Commissioner of Truth Colombia and REMI process, and José María Martínez, psychologist of the Disappearances Intervention Group COP Madrid. The UCM professor of psychology and expert in trauma, Noelia Morán, addressed in a conference "The importance of psychological care for those involved in the processes of recovery of remains". Finally, the General Director of Democratic Memory, Diego Blázquez, and the President of the General Council of Psychology of Spain closed the Conference.
Offering psychological support to family members and interveners before, during and after the process of recovering victims’ remains is a right and a necessity that must be recognized and addressed. All the speakers unanimously raised the importance of this commitment and the need to create a formula for coordination between the SEMD and the General Council of Psychology.