Dr. Sandra Rafman

Dr. Sandra Rafman is a psychologist integrating human rights, developmental, attachment, and trauma perspectives. Her professional appointments have included a professorship at the University of Quebec in Montreal, a clinician at the McGill University Health Centre-Montreal Children’s Hospital, and a consultant at many community centres, including Maison d’Haïti. Sandra Rafman’s writings focus on ethical dimensions in children's play and narratives as well as children's notions of justice and forgiveness. She is particularly interested in the interaction of the political and the psychological, and she argues for the inclusion of a moral dimension in the study of children’s responses to traumatic events. She advocates for adopting a human rights approach in assuring service delivery to disaster-affected youth.

In her research and practice, she engages with children, families, and communities who have experienced traumatic events such as the death or disappearance of family members and loved ones, the encounter with life-threatening illness, subjugation to physical or sexual abuse, witnessing of parental homicide and suicide, political violence, war, and natural disasters. Sandra Rafman has conducted research with refugee children who have lived in war and have lost parents in this context, as well as children who have encountered earthquakes. She illustrates how play, like art, can serve a transformative compassionate response following such ruptures. Her forthcoming book deals with the symbolic representations and play narratives of children who have experienced traumatic events.

As a paediatric psychologist, Rafman worked with children on the paediatric intensive care, cardiology, oncology, palliative, and technology-dependent units. She was engaged by the direction of the hospital to assist in preparing for pandemics and disasters in a timely and coordinated fashion.

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