Internship EXPERIENCES:
Internship with Survivors of Torture

Privilege and Responsibility:  My Journey of Humility and Action through an Internship
at The Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC)

By Erin McConnell

Dedicated to all of us who believe change is possible and are willing to walk its path.

In the summer of my first year at SWC, I ventured into a heuristic research process in which I pondered how I could hold a balance between privilege and suffering. My first conclusion into the matter included the idea that with privilege comes responsibility, a theme originally imparted to me from alumni, Val Carpenter, before our work at Creativity for Peace camp. However, as I would soon come to find out, learning a theory is one thing, and integrating it into practice is definitely another.

Before I left New Mexico for my internships, I contacted Amber Grey to find out of she had any contacts in the DC area where I could do some work with survivors of torture. I had taken one of her Somatic Psychology and Trauma workshops a few weeks earlier, and truly had no education into the intricacies of working with severe trauma; but I felt a deep stirring in my soul to work with people who have experienced the profound trauma of torture. As fate would have it, she did, and after some e-mail correspondence I was connected with a place to pursue my ambitions of making a difference in this world. I was going to be awesome! Art therapy is so cool and I know the basics of how to work. I will be so great for them! Hey, no judgment here.  We all have to go through our own curriculum, as Katherine Ninos would say.

My first encounters with the TASSC organization were in mid-June during the international torture awareness week. Survivors from around the country and the world joined together in Washington D.C. for healing, education and legislation. During this time, I would facilitate the only art therapy experience I have had with TASSC survivors thus far. Just to let it be known, the art experience included a “Braid of Hope and Strength” that survivors and witnesses made to connect us into a larger healing circle before viewing the premiere of a documentary made about TASSC survivors and the organization itself. We were in ceremony gathering ourselves through the weaving and binding of pieces of intentionally chosen fabric to symbolize personal meaning of individual strengths and resources.

Although the art experience was quite moving, it was only a fragment of my experience during that week with the courageous members of TASSC who have survived political persecution, and the inexplicable trauma of suffering at the hands of another human being. The whole time during that week I felt out of place. I was an outsider and I knew it, and I am glad I didn’t let that stop me from being present. As professionals we must remember that no matter how much empathy or compassion we have, sometimes we can’t understand what its like to be in our client’s shoes. We have never been there. To walk into the situation with arrogance and assume we should just fit in is immature. This latter opinion is even more emphasized when the group one is entering has collectively, individually and sadly been pushed to a brink where trust in other human beings is an effortful process. As people who want to help, it is wise to sit quietly and participate humbly trusting that eventually we will come to know the people and share experiences that ultimately form relationship.

During that week of action, TASSC holds a 24-hour vigil in front of the White House.  Many activities take place during the vigil such as speakers, testimonials, press interviews, processions, a drum circle and so much more. After I had moved in circle with the survivors and fellow witnesses, singing such songs as, “We Shall Overcome,” I noticed my movement within the circle was in rhythm with a shadow I could not shake. As the metropolitan police moved to block off the area separating those who would be arrested for civil disobedience from those who would not, we were pushed behind barricades on the sidewalk. There we continued to stand holding banners and singing, “We are justice seeking people, and we are singing, singing for our lives.” I told myself that the hot sun beating down on my fair skin that was the reason I moved away from the crowd to the shade of a tree a few yards away. I am glad that I did, though. For it was in that moment I was able to have a moment of clarity on what was becoming for me a deeply personal and emotional moment.

Let me set-up the scene for you. The barricaded square that included policemen on horseback and the black paddy wagon was located directly in front of the residence of our present-day elected leader. To the left were a group of men playing street hockey and all around us were tourists whom were annoyed because we were blocking their pictures in front of the White House, and who, by the way, definitely did not understand why we were demonstrating. I would even dare to say they were bemused by our presence and thought that we were wasting our time.  I would tell them some blurb to the effect of, “Survivors of torture and education to repeal the MCA (Military Commissions Act).” Blank stares and expressionless responses were common.  I began to stand there and feel the outrage in my body. “Why don’t you care?” I wanted to go over and yell at the boys playing their game, “Stop it! Show some respect! People are suffering because of our apathy!  Why don’t you care?” And yet, there I stood, silent in disbelief, full of anger and hatred. Then, as if reason tapped me on the shoulder personally and forced my head through a window of clarity, I looked at the two situations side by side and thought to myself, “So this is what they meant. This is what it means to hold both.” 

I realized the anger I felt was not only toward them, but as usual, was toward the part of myself who also chooses to be silent out of fear. The question confronted me like a slap across the face; “So, if I can’t change their minds, to make people care enough to want to learn the truth, what can I do?” Ah, yes, I remember: I can change myself. In Sister Dianna’s (the founder and director of TASSC) book, The Blindfold’s Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth, there is an excerpt where she is speaking with another survivor. They are discussing anger and its motives for action. He tells her, “That kind of anger [resentment, revenge] only hurts you. To have anger about something that you can do something about, that’s different. Because then it drives you, it gives you courage.” 

And so my time at TASSC continued throughout the summer into the fall, not as an art therapist, but as a person who cares, a person who wants to help in any way she can. You see, I realized that what Amber Grey told me about working with survivors is true…in that we will be placed in that familiar dual role art therapists know quite well, and that it will most likely be another need for a survivor that will need to be taken care of first such as food, shelter, asylum, etc. I volunteered my time to TASSC, offering to do whatever was needed. I found that my one afternoon per week at TASSC became one of my greatest joys. There were my awe inspiring talks with Harold, an 80-something year-old full-time staff member who taught me, through stories of his life during the civil rights movement, why it is that we do the work that we do when it seems like nothing will really change. His reason is one of the tenets of therapy as I see it; you keep showing up because you care and you let go of the outcome. There is Sister Alice, a straight-laced German American also in her 80’s, though you could never tell from looking at her. Sister Alice is a nun from Minnesota who breathes hard work and human rights. (In my opinion, something we could stand to have more of in our culture these days.) Or perhaps my greatest smiles came from dear Demise, a proud Ethiopian refugee who greeted me at the door with a warm smile, a hug, and an insistence that I sit in his chair while we chatted about our week. Whenever I left the office at TASSC, it just seemed that that the sky was bluer, that the breeze was stronger or that the flowers were more colorful than when I entered. I have come to realize as we move through this world as professionals in this business of helping, it isn’t really so much about what we give the people we work with, for what they give to us is so much greater. Yes, there is much suffering in this world, and because of it I no longer believe in the idea of justice. But, seeing the beauty and enjoying life is so important to keeping the balance.

The people of TASSC have helped me to remove the blindfold, to be free of the trance of US government foreign policy so that I can respond to it. With the blindfold removed, I can clearly see the trail dug by my light figure, Eleanor Roosevelt. It is a path toward a true democracy that breathes equality, truth, freedom, and dignity. We are privileged in America. Whether one chooses to believe it or not, we are. My time during and since SWC, has led me to make a decision to exploit my privilege to make positive changes in this country. I will do this as an art therapist, a woman living in America, and an educated person with resources available to US citizens. With privilege does, indeed, come responsibility…an ability to respond…to show up…to value life…and to ask whomever we are working with, “How Can I Help?” 

To find out more about what you can do to stop torture, please visit www.tassc.org and sign the petition to repeal the Military Commissions Act. Because torture is never okay…never.

Dedicated to my wild woman…hers and mine.