This interview took place on January 03, 2021 between Marisol Ramírez and journalist Hugo Prieto, and was originally published in Prodavinci under the title, “Marisol Ramírez: ‘El Trabajo comunitario está bajo la lupa’”
IQLatino has acquired the rights to translate and publish this interview in English.
As antecedents of the Venezuelan psychosocial trauma we could mention the Caracazo and the Vargas landslide, and, more recently—no longer as episodes, but as a permanent reality—the complex humanitarian emergency, the human rights violations and the diaspora that has thrown 5,6 million Venezuelans to more than 90 countries.
Anxiety and depression are the symptoms of an imposed reality that affects, to a greater or lesser extent, each and every one of Venezuelans. There is no light at the end of the tunnel, but there is a journey in the dark, whose beginnings we could locate in 2014. The shadow that is projected in 2021 is greater difficulties, as a consequence of the worsening and prolongation of the political conflict and the economic crisis. Without a doubt, this has had an impact on the mental health of Venezuelans. Marisol Ramírez* talks about this issue.
During the Caracazo we saw an inflamed society. There was also a novelty. We saw all the forms of violence on television, how did this influence the emotionality and psyche of Venezuelans?
The important thing about the Caracazo—for the victims who lived it up close, but also for the secondary victims—is that it was an event of such magnitude that it generated trauma at the individual and social levels. We are talking about a wound, a fracture, which is not properly physical, but rather has to do with psycho-emotionality, with social-emotionality. Then, we began to see the innocence of the Venezuelan affected, that supposed naivety, so well-illustrated in the fable of Tío Tigre and Tío Conejo. Trauma occurs and the need to face it, for what? To fall into a natural situation, from a psychological point of view, which is grief. The Caracazo certainly marks the beginning, the formal beginning, I would say, of a lifestyle in Venezuela that goes from crisis to mourning.
The diaspora, as a traumatic event, acquires a deeper dimension. I would say that it is a rupture—not on a social scale, but on a personal level, among other things, because we all have a relative who fled the country. And in this transition, in this modus vivendi, the only thing that has advanced is the crisis and the mourning. What would be the consequences of this process?
First I want to say something important: This model of life, of crisis and mourning, that we Venezuelans live, has never ceased to be personal. It has moved from the personal to the social and back to the personal. Maybe we had a son, a nephew, imprisoned for a political issue. Or a dead child as a result of the repression of the demonstrations in 2017. We saw how, from 2015, the phenomenon of the complex humanitarian emergency developed. We all have a family member or know someone who died due to a shortage of medicines or the absence of medical treatment. We all have a family member or know someone who lost a lot of weight. So this model of crisis has never stopped being personal. It has not lost social and political characteristics, all expressions that can be recognized.
It would be very naive to think that this is the work of chance.
This has been finely thought, planned, structured, designed, to break with that image of naivety of the Venezuelan, who somehow picks up a way of living, of solving, of being in the world, both individually and collectively, in order to survive, or to try to do so, in a scheme where we move between the pain generated by the wound—a product of the crisis and the rupture—and the trauma it generates.
What is perceived in the atmosphere is the urgent need to forget the trauma to find a solution. Perhaps that contributes to improving the mental and emotional health of Venezuelans. Is that possible? Say, in political, ethical, moral terms?
That is the question and it is also wound, the wound of pain. Grief over loss of life and consequently other griefs—loss of job or health condition, loss of a partner, moving to another country—is never linear. It is like a skein of threads that, eventually, can be untangled, but the opposite can also happen. The prudent thing to do, psychologically speaking, is to put that in perspective. Don’t get caught up in the present. That is part of the battle. What is happening here? The key word in front of the question that you ask me, which for me is a sore spot, is adequacy. Adequacy is not adapting; it is not conforming or resigning myself. It is, if you will, one of the main elements of the so-called resilience, which is not bought anywhere, nor is it decreed. You have to train it, you have to cultivate it. There is no other way.
So then, what is adequacy?
When I say adequacy, it is about understanding that we—throughout 20 years in which there have been repression, deaths, disappearances, and all the figures that we know of the complex humanitarian emergency and the diaspora—are not going to be able to leave behind those elements that have caused us multiple wounds. We have to learn to live with them. And that means that I am not going to stay in the question. Why did he die? Why did they kill him? Why? Why? No. And here we return to the starting point which is the individual, which is the man, which is the woman, which is the people. What this battle is about is that in some way I can adapt my personal space, in the midst of such a complex process, which also does not stop, believe me that it is not easy to handle oneself in those circumstances.
The battle, indeed, is not linear. It comes and goes, right? And something similar could be said of the crisis. What would be the state of emotional and mental health of Venezuelans?
The perspective of the mental, emotional and psychological health of Venezuelans goes through understanding that the solution to this great problem we are experiencing has nothing to do with the methods or forms that we know—marches, protests, demonstrations. In fact, protests happen every day for my right to a life with public services—water, electricity, gas. So, there is not a single solution, but a skein of solutions as well, a compendium of things, which have to be part of a very important and fundamental agreement. Here the circumstances and the visual we have of ourselves has changed. It is no longer just about Caracas and the province, but about people who have a lot of money and other people who earn two dollars. How can I be the owner of my life in the midst of circumstances where health and nutrition problems remain the same? For that I have to go back, I have to recover, I have to adapt my personal life to that social life, in which I have to connect with other things to be able to travel this space. The solutions have to do with coexistence, so I have to adapt my view, my internal gaze, to what I am going to have to share with people that perhaps I did not imagine, in a country where there are sectors that have been frank and public enemies. And that must be done. Otherwise it will not be possible, because the other option that remains, I do not see it possible, nor do I see it viable.
What would that be?
The military route, I don’t see it, I don’t want it. And in the end, I think it is part of the learning that we have to do as a society. So, the way we do have is the citizen way. The way of coexistence in the conditions in which I can, not in the conditions that I would like or that perhaps I need.
We have really insisted, years and years, on participation, on the civic path, and we have not achieved anything. Politics have failed the people. I think there is a feeling that could be summed up in that popular advice “I throw a little dirt and I don’t play anymore.” So the way of participation, the citizen way, is also in crisis.
Yes, definitely. That is why it has to change. When I talk to you about adequacy, I do it from the “feeling-thinking” (process in which we put thought and feeling to work together, it is the fusion of two ways of perceiving reality). I have learned, from my origins which are social psychology, that the civic path also needs to be felt in a different way. I agree with you, there is a crisis, but also a certain exhaustion. I marched, I protested, I did. Yes, but that individual self has to change in order to become a social self. Yes, the citizen route has to be shared from the small spaces of the community to more representative spaces. It is not only a question of reviewing the numbers that show how the complex humanitarian emergency has progressed, or the deepening of the crisis, or how the pain increases exponentially, but also pointing out aspects such as resilience, solidarity, hope, so that they are not just pretty words, but words that respond to attitudes, to defined programs of accompaniment in community work that are translated into very concrete actions. Those three things that I just mentioned—resilience, solidarity, hope—are attitudes that are defined, cultivated, learned, spread, programmed, planned. Not only is destruction planned, construction is also planned.
We are moving in opposite directions. What would make the difference?
The times to destroy something are short, but the time to build something requires a different diligence. It requires a different feeling of thinking, on the part of people and social groups. The difference for me—in this model of crisis and mourning that we are experiencing—is that the path of participation, the work that we have to do, also requires adequacy and has to do, fundamentally, with a psychosocial process. I need to relate, get together with people, with organizations and make sense of the adequacy of this model of crisis and grief. That is why I said, at the beginning, adequacy is not conforming, or adapting, or resigning.
All of that requires planning, organization. I mean, it takes time. I don’t think that Venezuelans have a notion of what the long term means. We must change the way we oppose this model of crisis and mourning. But not to open a parenthesis and try, in 2021, what was done in 2017. We do not need another bloodbath. I also don’t think people want to repeat that experience.
There is one important thing about grief management that this reflection suggests to me. Faced with the loss of life—and also of the other losses—obviously, there are moments of natural, legitimate rage, beware, they also need free expression, moments of great anger, not only against the one who left but with life, with the one that remained. There are different manifestations of that dissatisfaction, of that loss, of that battle that is followed by a sensation of change, but it is mounted on immediacy and it is true, the Venezuelan is used to magic formulas, to “do not give me but put me where there is,” to an imaginary that has hurt us a lot. But this change is not going to take us to the past, to things as they were before. That’s impossible. I understand that the dimension of time does not help, but things are already happening and this has to do with my attitude as a citizen. As long as this political situation prevails, although inevitably, at some point it will be necessary to resolve and coexist, what is true is that we have to unite, integrate, connect with the initiatives that are possible. And they all have to do with this process of psychological construction—which is individual—and social construction. And that allows you to make sense of the phrase I said earlier. Wow, I am the owner of my life and of the way that I am. The dignification of life is not decreed either, it is not an entelechy of human rights, it is something I believe in and that can be practiced daily, but I cannot do that alone in my house, I have to do it with others who cannot pretend that things are as before or wait for them to solve themselves. They are the two most difficult images to handle in this entire construction process that takes time.
Initiatives that could point to the construction of a different social reality, at this time, are subject to repression and harassment. Which translates to more damage, more suffering, and more grief. What reflection would you make about the role of non-governmental organizations? I think that a change and a way of adequacy could be incubating there, in the sense in which you have been expressing it throughout this conversation.
It is not only this type of organizations, it is also the people who have responded to a call and have found through this route the psychosocial component to change, towards adequacy in this model of crisis and mourning. I can speak from the alliance that we established, in 2014, Psychologists without Borders and the Cesap social group. For what? Precisely for people to organize, reflect, question and review what is the problem in their community. Why in 2014? Because very difficult times were coming. Times of great pain. We started with the ‘Accompanying in pain’ program, aimed at community leaders. We wanted to share knowledge with people who were on the front lines, there, in the neighborhood, in the community, in the barrios, on the street. This experience led us to psychosocial support and to match with Cesap group programs—food security, water treatment, among others. We have understood, because we have seen what happened with Alimenta la Solidaridad, Acción Solidaria, Prepara Familia, that we have been able to accompany people so that we all understand that change comes from within. There is a paradigm shift that is taking place and that has a name. Psychosocial support allows people to recognize themselves as subjects of rights, of not waiting but understanding that this is a matter of time and construction. Obviously, this change becomes dangerous for a model of crisis and mourning, which is planned, which is in a different stage and where the binary is not only in politics but in everyday life. Yes, community work is under scrutiny and one way to attack it is through resources.
In the same way that you anticipated difficult times starting in 2014, what do you expect for 2021?
In nine months of the pandemic, by different means, we managed to attend almost 3,500 people in the psychological care service. What is striking about this? At the end of 2019, we served almost a thousand people. The demand for this service tripled, we have served people from the interior and people outside of Venezuela. We paused, but there are already people asking when we will resume our work. This, combined with the most recent figures from the Encovi survey, makes us think that this year will be difficult. Because this process of crisis and mourning continues to escalate in the mental health of Venezuelans. What we have seen in the diagnostic impressions is an increase in anxiety-depressive disorders and also in cases of gender violence, violence against women, violence in the space of daily life. In a few days we are going to enter another period of confinement and that generates great frustration, not only for work reasons but for existential reasons. The other disorder has to do with the adequacy of which we speak. That is why it is so necessary for people to bond with a space that allows them to understand the meaning of resilience, of hope, of solidarity.
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* Psychologist (UCV), Specialists in Health Policy Planning (Cendes). Coordinator of the Program of Psychological Assistance and Training in Psychosocial Accompaniment Accompanying the Pain, in alliance with Cesap. Hosts the radio space Psychology and Citizenship.
Photo: Tumisu/Pixabay