ABSTRACT
Our post-modern world is littered with displacement and dispersal; most of us engaging in attempts at reconstruction, reframing what has gone before. But the task for refugee victims of torture is altogether different. The shards of memory which pierce their lives make such reconstruction deeply dangerous. The chapter presents a model which involves a way of being, without words, akin to a pre-verbal state; after a time, people progress through this stage and are able to confront more directly and work through their experiences. Generally men are more easily able to express anger and are more strongly in touch with their own potential strength. The women seem more lost and disconnected. The men are more likely to have had direct political engagement in their countries, and suffered the consequences, whereas the women frequently were tortured because of their association with their men.
