The three former Israeli hostages are “in stable condition”according to the doctor who examined them. These three women were reunited with their families in Israel, on the first day of the ceasefire between the Israeli army and the Palestinian Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip devastated by more than 15 months of war. Little information has filtered through on their psychological state and for good reason, it is difficult to establish a diagnosis so quickly, explains François Ducrocq, psychiatrist at Lille University Hospital and deputy national coordinator of Cump (medical-psychological emergency cells).
franceinfo: What problems will arise for these ex-hostages?
Dr François Ducrocq: We often focus on mental health problems, including everything that revolves around post-traumatic stress disorder and its complex forms. We also know that stress, in this case psychological trauma, taken to the extreme in people who have experienced acts, a prioritorture, barbarism, ethnic cleansing, genocide or very long detention, is associated with physical violence, psychological violence and sexual violence. We know that this is what will lead to a deconstruction of the individual which will require all these processes of resilience and adaptation.
How do we then support them in the medium and long term?
These are care, things now well codified, care protocols, which moreover do not differ enormously from more “simple” traumas or which last less long, we are thinking in particular of victims of sexual violence, victims attacks, robberies or hostage-takings, a little more dramatic on a daily basis. There is a whole aspect called psychoeducation, which the World Health Organization puts a lot of emphasis on. It is about information, understanding the phenomenon and the issues, both for the patients themselves and for their environment, their families. Afterwards, there are therapeutic acts, what we call trauma-focused therapies. EMDR is often cited, but there are many other therapeutic approaches, also exposure therapies. And then, very often, when post-traumatic stress disorders have been diagnosed, there are also medicinal approaches, with psychotropic treatments which, in association with psychotherapies, prove to be, if not frighteningly effective, at least less essential.
How will they return to normal life? Is this even possible?
-What does it mean to return to normal life? This is what resilience and reconstruction are all about. We who are really on the health side and not on the sociology side for example, the goal is to reduce the impact, to reduce the intensity of symptoms, the intensity of the illness, the intensity of mental health problems and thereby reducing the impact of all these physical, psychological, emotional, professional and academic consequences on children, of all these developmental disorders.
“It’s true that from the moment mental health has been somewhat restored, adaptation to life becomes possible.”
François Ducrocqat franceinfo
But it depends on the individuals, it depends on their life trajectory. The literature is however quite clear on this; it is estimated that between 50 and 70% of these hostages are likely to develop serious disorders, but that a significant proportion of them will recover from these disorders.
