David Becker

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David Becker (born 1954 ) is a German psychologist , university professor and expert in psychotraumatology . Worked as a trauma therapist in Chile between 1982 and 1999 , since his return he has been advising humanitarian aid organizations that are active in war and crisis regions.

Career

Grave of the parents in the forest cemetery Dahlem in Berlin

David Becker is the son of the German-French children's book author Antoinette Becker, b. Mathis and the lawyer and education politician Hellmut Becker . The parents met in Alsace , married at the end of 1944 and moved to Kressbronn on Lake Constance , which became a French zone of occupation after the end of the war . His five siblings include the lawyer Nicolas , the psychoanalyst Stephan and the sexologist Sophinette Becker . His godmother was Inge Aicher-Scholl , whose siblings Hans and Sophie had been executed by the National Socialists as members of the White Rose .

In his book The Invention of Trauma Becker reveals a number of personal information about his life story and shows how these experiences are interwoven with his professional work.

“Looking back, I notice that victory and defeat, intercultural encounters and conflicts as well as the central question of dealing with the German past and coming to terms with millions of crimes were part of my identity development, my fantasies and concrete experiences very early on. Even if I was overwhelmed with these realities as a child, it was the topics of my family that were discussed at the table, and so it was normality in which I grew up. "

- David Becker : The Invention of Trauma

After graduating from the John F. Kennedy School in Berlin in 1973, Becker began studying psychology in the same year at what was then Department 11 of the Free University of Berlin (FUB), from which he graduated in 1978 . This course was shaped by the critical psychology of Klaus Holzkamp .

After graduating, Becker first worked for the Reinickendorf district office in Berlin with “young people at risk” before he went to Chile in 1982 for 17 years . He received his doctorate in 1989 from the Free University of Berlin and until 1999 was professor of clinical psychology at the Diego Portales University in Santiago de Chile for ten years .

With his habilitation in 2008, Becker received the license to teach from Leibniz University Hannover . He taught social psychology there until 2014 . Since 2014 he has been Professor of Social Psychology and Intercultural Practice at the Sigmund Freud Private University in Berlin , where he heads the Bachelor's degree in Psychology and the Master's degree in Cultural Relations and Migration .

Becker participates in the holiday university for critical psychology and is director of the office for psychosocial processes (OPSI) of the International Academy for Innovative Education, Psychology and Economics (INA) in Berlin.

Theoretically, Becker is based on social psychological and psychoanalytic concepts and is linked to political psychology . He is critical of the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Act

Through his sister, Becker came into personal contact with Hans Keilson in 1980 , whose concept of “sequential trauma” appealed to him and influenced his professional work.

When his Chilean girlfriend at the time and later wife gave up her German exile in 1982 and returned to her homeland, he went with her. In Chile, he first completed further training in family therapy with Dr. Altamirano from the Universidad de Chile joined various Chilean institutes and organizations, became a member of the Latin American Institute for Mental Health and Human Rights ( Instituto Latinoamericano de Salud Mental y Derechos Humanos ) in Santiago and began his trauma therapy work in cooperation with the therapists there. He had this supervised psychoanalytically - just like the work at the Berlin district office before .

Confronted with the limits of his own professional activities, Becker returned to Germany in 1999, gave up patient treatment as the focus of his work and focused his commitment from then on on support, further training and advice on psychosocial projects. He attaches particular importance to not only helping the victims of torture and similar traumas , but also to the therapists learning to protect themselves.

The consulting assignments have taken Becker to numerous war and crisis regions over the years. This brought him into contact with the very different conditions that make help necessary. Knowledge of this influences his theoretical positions, which he presents in his publications in German, English and Spanish and defends them uncompromisingly if necessary. These include two works in particular that complement each other and are related to one another: No Reconciliation Without Hatred and The Invention of Trauma . While he deals with the trauma of the persecuted - so the subtitle - in the first book mentioned, published in 1992, he deals with the concept of trauma in the second book and at the same time his habilitation thesis. In 1994 Roland Kaufhold spoke to Becker about life and work in a dictatorship and “taking sides as a specific feature of therapeutic work”. In 2012 the interview was reprinted in the online magazine HaGalil . David Zimmermann wrote a largely approving review of his examination of the term trauma - published in 2006 and a new edition in 2014 - it should "become standard reading for all those who initiate decisions in NGOs and political committees" - while Gerhard Wolfrum He did not fail to make a few critical remarks because he did not agree with some of Becker's harsh criticism of the trauma researchers.

Becker rejects, as u. a. Knut Rauchfuss reported on the concept of a "post-trauma stage" and is at least in agreement with Keilson and his Chilean colleagues. Instead, he speaks of “continuous socio-political traumatization processes” or calls it “socio-politically induced traumatisation”. In contrast to the mainstream, Becker does not understand trauma as a state, but as a process: Victims of political systems, the persecuted, victims of war or terrorism, as well as victims of natural and many other disasters, would be described as "traumatized" without the " Relationship between socio-political and intrapsychic processes ”would have been better understood in the more than 25-year history of the term. Although Becker welcomes the recognition of psychological trauma consequences as well, which has taken place in the meantime, he is at the same time opposed to “essentially narrowly psychiatric, exclusively symptom-oriented trauma research” and “an associated treatment practice which hides its extremely reactionary character behind an allegedly apolitical stance” .

Using the example of David Rieff , who in 2003 called for “a return to apparently apolitical and neutral humanitarian aid”, Becker vehemently contradicts an aid mentality based on neutral attitudes and defends “non-neutral humanitarian aid that is interested in human rights and compliance with them ". Becker also believes it is necessary “to develop one's own models of theory and practice in different cultural contexts” and to develop them “in an inter- and transcultural communication process”. He cannot hide his political position when he writes:

“Instead of taking traumatizations in war and crisis areas into account, leading to a really new and integrated approach in humanitarian aid and development cooperation, there is only one new sub-area that has often brought more confusion than help and which is imperialistic and cultural-denying to those affected is slipped over. "

- David Becker : The Invention of Trauma

Memberships

  • Cooperation partner of the political psychology working group , an association of social scientists from various universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Fonts (selection)

  • Psychotherapy for extremely traumatized people within the dictatorship. Psychological and political reality . In: Psychoanalysis in contradiction . tape 2 , no. 4 , 1990, pp. 42-69 .
  • Without hatred, there is no reconciliation. The trauma of the persecuted . With a foreword by Paul Parin . In cooperation with medico international and the Stiftung Buntstift eV, Federation of Grünnaher state foundations and educational institutions. Kore, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1992, ISBN 3-926023-27-9 .
  • Test stamp PTSD. Objections to the prevailing concept of trauma . In: Medico International (ed.): Rapid reaction force 'soul' . Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 25-47 .
  • The misery with the refugees. Ungrateful victims and their helpers. Considerations for the psychological diagnosis and therapy of tortured persons . In: Swiss Medical Journal . tape 79 , no. 4 , 1998, pp. 2040-2048 .
  • Trauma between therapeutic and political discourse . In: Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft der Kinderschutzzentren eV (Ed.): Kinderschutzforum 2002. Trauma and the consequences of trauma - a topic of youth welfare. 4th Child Protection Forum in Düsseldorf . Child Protection Centers, Cologne 2003, p. 120-128 .
  • Dealing with the Consequences of Organized Violence in Trauma Work . In: Austin A., Fischer M., Ropers N. (Eds.): Transforming Ethnopolitical Conflict . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2004, doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-663-05642-3_19 (English): “War and persecution cause not only material harm but also produce extreme psychological suffering for those who must both live and survive under such circumstances. "
  • The difficulty of adequately describing and understanding massive suffering. Trauma conceptions, social process and the new ideology of sacrifice . In: André Karger (Ed.): Trauma and Science (=  Psychoanalytische Blätter . Volume 29 ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-525-40140-8 , p. 61-91 .
  • Extreme suffering and the perspective of post-traumatic growth. Denial of reality, naive wishful thinking or a piece of scientific knowledge? In: Journal of Psychotraumatology, Psychotherapy Science, Psychological Medicine . tape 7 , no. 1 , 2009, p. 21-34 .
  • Waiting for the barbarians. Torture and the Post-Colonial Fear Discourse . In: Reinhold Görling (ed.): The vulnerability of people. Torture and the Politics of Affects . Fink, Paderborn 2011, ISBN 978-3-7705-5145-3 , p. 165-174 .
  • Perpetrator and victim. Thinking about two difficult terms . In: André Karger (Ed.): Forget, repay, forgive, reconcile? Living on with the trauma (=  Psychoanalytic sheets . Volume 30 ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, Oakville, Conn. 2012, ISBN 978-3-525-46028-3 , pp. 82–96 ( google.de [accessed on May 11, 2020]).
  • The invention of trauma. Intertwined stories . New edition of the 2nd edition. Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8379-2396-4 (first edition: Edition Freitag, Berlin 2006).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David Becker: History. (PDF; 1,717 KB) In: The Invention of Trauma. 2014, p. 10 , accessed on May 11, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b c David Becker: Geschichtliches. (PDF; 1,717 KB) In: The Invention of Trauma. 2014, pp. 10–15 , accessed on May 11, 2020 .
  3. ↑ David Becker: History. (PDF; 1,717 KB) In: The Invention of Trauma. 2014, pp. 11–12 , accessed on May 11, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b c d David Becker CV. Education. In: DocPlayer. Retrieved May 10, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b c Roland Kaufhold : No reconciliation without hatred. The trauma of the persecuted. Interview with David Becker. In: HaGalil . July 16, 2012, accessed May 10, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b c d Prof. Dr. David Becker. In: Sigmund Freud Private University. Retrieved May 10, 2020 .
  7. ^ Holiday University Critical Psychology 2020. Organizing the crisis. 8-12 September Berlin. In: Ferienuni Critical Psychology. 2020, accessed May 17, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Speakers. David Becker. In: Ferienuni Critical Psychology. FU Berlin. 2012, accessed May 10, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Prof. Dr. David Becker. In: International Academy Berlin for Innovative Education, Psychology and Economics. Retrieved May 11, 2020 .
  10. ↑ a b cooperation partners. In: Working Group on Political Psychology. Retrieved May 10, 2020 .
  11. ↑ David Becker: PTSD test stamp. Objections to the prevailing concept of trauma . In: Medico International (ed.): Rapid reaction force 'soul' . Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 25-47 .
  12. ↑ Hans Keilson : Sequential Traumatization in Children. Investigation of the fate of Jewish war orphans (=  psychosocial edition ). Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2005, ISBN 3-89806-456-5 (first edition: 1979).
  13. ↑ David Becker: History. (PDF; 1,717 KB) In: The Invention of Trauma. 2014, p. 13 , accessed on May 11, 2020 .
  14. ↑ a b David Becker: Geschichtliches. (PDF; 1,717 KB) In: The Invention of Trauma. 2014, p. 14 , accessed on May 11, 2020 .
  15. ↑ List of authors. (PDF; 173 KB) In: Springerlink. Retrieved May 10, 2020 .
  16. ↑ a b David Becker: Geschichtliches. (PDF; 1,717 KB) In: The Invention of Trauma. 2014, p. 20 , accessed on May 11, 2020 .
  17. ↑ David Becker: The Invention of Trauma. Intertwined stories . Edition Freitag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-936252-06-4 (also habilitation thesis Universität Hannover 2008).
  18. ↑ a b David Zimmermann: David Becker: The invention of trauma. Review. In: Socialnet. Retrieved May 12, 2020 .
  19. ↑ Gerhard Wolfrum: David Becker: The invention of trauma. Review. In: Socialnet. Retrieved May 12, 2020 .
  20. ↑ Knut Rauchfuss: “The tragedy only begins after the crime has ended”. A culture of impunity hinders the rehabilitation of survivors of serious human rights abuses . In: Periphery . tape 28 , no. 109/110 . Verlag Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2008, ISSN  0173-184X , p. 61–82 ( budrich-journals.de [PDF; 114 kB ; accessed on May 10, 2020]).
  21. ↑ David Becker: History. (PDF; 1,717 KB) In: The Invention of Trauma. 2014, p. 10 , accessed on May 11, 2020 .
  22. ↑ a b David Becker: Geschichtliches. (PDF; 1,717 KB) In: The Invention of Trauma. 2014, p. 10 , accessed on May 11, 2020 .
  23. ↑ David Becker: History. (PDF; 1,717 KB) In: The Invention of Trauma. 2014, p. 15 , accessed on May 11, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Becker, David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German university professor, psychologist, trauma therapist
DATE OF BIRTH 1954