Experiences of Cultural Mysticism in War Psychotrauma in Traditional Africa

The article addresses the issue of experiences of cultural mysticism in war psychotrauma in an African cultural context. It starts from the clinical observations of a fear of the mysticism among certain soldiers engaged in the war against the separatist groups “Amba Boys” in North-West and South-West Cameroon. The objective of the study was to understand the experiential experience of Cameroonian soldiers psychotraumatized by war in their cultural signifiers. The study was conducted using a phenomenological approach. The data was collected at the RAPHA-Psy Psychology Foundation, from four psychotraumatized soldiers, through semi-structured interviews. The results reveal that these soldiers experienced the psychotrauma as resulting from a complex of mysterious conflicts. Also, the psychotraumatic symptomatology was for them a set of manifestations of supernatural attacks. According to them, there are two worlds in the battlefield, one visible and the other invisible.