Abstract
Based on a historical-cultural perspective of social psychology, the aim of this study was to understand the psychosocial implications of traumatic experience in relatives of forced disappearances in the Colombian armed conflict. The research grew out of a study of multiple cases. Eighteen interviews with three focus groups were conducted and a sentence completion tool was used. The information produced was integrated in a hermeneutics unit using the Atlas-ti 6.2 program and for data analysis was used abductive reasoning. Relatives of forced disappearances remain in a state of mourning: a fracture in memory caused by the uncertainty of what happened to their loved one. It was found that relatives of forced disappearances construct contradictory meanings about State and illegal armed groups. We conclude that the overcoming of grief involves individual, historical and institutional dimensions. Thus armed groups, society and State have a crucial role to the significance of traumatic experience.
Keywords:
forced disappearance; mourning; colombian armed conflict; traumatic experience
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