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Aided by the growing interest in the cultural dimensions of psychology, the experiences of psychologists working with communities under wartime duress and in the immediate post-war context have forced us to re-think our understanding of trauma and psychotherapeutic intervention. Recognizing the role of culture has allowed us to rethink trauma-in-context, how people and communities understand trauma, and how to explore the most effective psychotherapeutic treatments in these post-war cultural contexts. Dawes and Honwana (Children, culture and mental health: Interventions in Conditions of War. In B. Efraime Jr, P. Riedesser, J. Walter, H. Adam, & P. Steudtner (Eds), Children, war and persecution - rebuilding hope. Maputo: Rebuilding Hope, 1998) suggest a holistic view of the individual-in-context in order to fully understand the meaning an individual brings and gives to a stressful experience. This perspective allows also for an understanding of the healing resources within a community available to the individual, and the psychologist, dealing with a traumatic event.
By exploring both the universal and specific cultural dimensions of trauma, while working with former child soldiers on Josina Machel Island, Mozambique, the authors seek to illuminate how these cultural dimensions, and wealth of healing resources, shaped their understanding of culture in the treatment process and the creation of treatment teams. A comprehensive cultural understanding also allowed the author to use and integrate important cultural dimensions of understanding in to the treatment process to aid in the elaboration of traumatic events associated with being a child soldier. These treatment methods are described via a case example, which represents much of the work carried out with the community of Josina Machel.