TRAUMA OF WAR AND EMOTIONAL REACTIONS BY INTERNALLY DISPLACED AND UN-DISPLACED CHILDREN

Ruqaia Gul; Erum Irshad

Ruqaia Gul Lecturer, Department of Psychology, University of Peshawar, Pakistan
Erum Irshad Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Peshawar, Pakistan

Keywords: War, Internally Displaced & Un-displaced Children, Emotional Reactions

Abstract

Aim of this research was to investigate the emotional reactions of children who went through the trauma of war by using Human Figure Drawing (HFD) as projective test. The hypothesis of the study was that Internally Displaced (IDP) children will show greater number of emotional indicators as compared to un-displaced children on HFD test also IDP children will show greater number of aggressive emotional indicators as compared to un-displaced children. The population of research included IDP and non IDP children so as to draw comparative analysis of their emotional reactions. Data was collected two to three years after their displacement. Sample comprised of 192 IDP and 90 un-displaced children. The results support the hypothesis. This projective technique is useful because childrens’ vocal abilities are not well developed.