A life time in exile : Finnish war children in Sweden after the war : an interview study with a psychological and psychodynamic approach
This study is based upon in-depth interviews with ten Finnish war children who were
evacuated to Sweden during the Second World War (1939 -1944) and who did not
return permanently to Finland after the war. This interpretative and qualitative
interview study of war children seems to be the only one of its kind. The interviews
were carried out in 2007 in Stockholm. At the time of the evacuation nine of the
children were between two and five years of age and one was seven years old. At the
time of the interviews they were approaching their seventieth birthday. The
interviewees were asked to tell about their life. The method for this study was an
application of Grounded Theory and Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) combined
with a psychoanalytic perspective that can contribute to a deeper understanding and
interpretation of psychic phenomena. The study strived to gain an understanding of
what it can mean for a little child to be separated from its family of birth, its
environment and its language and to be placed into a new surrounding with people
who were strangers and who spoke another language. When the narratives were
analyzed, what they said as well as the unspoken was noted. The interviewees had
difficulties reflecting over this decisive event in their lives. The patterns that came forth
were a lack of curiosity and lack of interest in the past. The lack of interest about the
Finnish mother was especially notable. In the interview they were affected by their
experiences, which became discernible in both the form and the content of the
language. The incomprehensible in the events during the evacuation was still
incomprehensible and incoherent in their narratives. An evacuation is an
overwhelming experience and also, as found in the interviews, a traumatic one. Such
an experience causes memories to be stored and recalled in a special way. A traumatic
experience is not revised or changed. It appeared in the interviews as an experience of
timelessness. The interviewees spoke of past experiences as if they were part of the
present, which indicates that the trauma was still there. A traumatic experience is
encapsulated, isolated and separated from the rest of the personality but still affects the
emotional life. The fragmented narratives took on coherence when they spoke about
their adult lives. Catastrophic experiences do not need to impair learning. The
interviewees had as adults found and developed different ways to endure their
separation experiences. They could bear with them a kind of normality that provided a
necessary defence for them to live their lives.
...


Publisher
Jyväskylän yliopistoISBN
978-951-39-7565-4ISSN Search the Publication Forum
2489-9003Contains publications
- Artikkeli I: Mattsson, B., Maliniemi-Piispanen, S. (2011). An interview study with a Finnish war child. The Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, 34, 31–40. DOI: 10.1080/01062301.2011.10592881
- Artikkeli II: Mattsson, B., Maliniemi-Piispanen, S. (2013). Thinking about the unknown. An Interview Study of Finnish War Children. Trauma and Memory, 1, 34–46. DOI: 10.12869/TM2013-1-06
- Artikkeli III: Mattsson, B., Maliniemi-Piispanen, S., & Aaltonen, J. (2015). The lost mother tongue : An interview study with Finnish war children. Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, 38 (2), 128-139. DOI: 10.1080/01062301.2015.1119612
- Artikkeli IV: Mattsson, B., Maliniemi-Piispanen, S., & Aaltonen, J. (2018). Traces of the past : an interview study with Finnish war children who did not return to Finland after the Second World War. Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, 40 (2), 129-137. DOI: 10.1080/01062301.2015.1119612
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- JYU Dissertations [130]
- Väitöskirjat [3229]
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