Psychosocial Assessment Malala Yousafzai -- A Girl with a Message

Description of Issues and Problems

The psychosocial review of Malala Yousafzai, a girl who was shot in the face while trying to promote education in a region of the world where girls and women were not permitted to do many of the things that boys and men can do, is a fascinating story of resistance to cruelty and resilience in the face of violence. This is Malala's review, but the story should begin not with her life, but with the political and social structure into which she was born -- in the SWAT region of Pakistan (in the town of SWAT). The Taliban, a fundamentalist Sunni version of Islam, was in control of the SWAT region of Pakistan. Their goal was to create a "puritanical caliphate that neither recognizes nor tolerates forms of Islam divergent from their own" (Tristam, 2011).

The Taliban, frankly speaking, uses a perversion of Islamic law, which according to Middle East expert Pierre Tristam, is " ... historically inaccurate, contradictory, self-serving and fundamentally deviant from" the mainstream understanding of Muslims and Islam. The Taliban (both in Afghanistan and Pakistan) have a very "misogynistic" approach to girls and women. When the Taliban took over the SWAT region of Pakistan, they closed schools for girls, and women that did not wear Islamic dress (covering their heads) were " ... flogged, beaten, shot or beheaded" (Tristam, p. 4).

There were no social service representatives in the SWAT region of Pakistan and there was really no justice for violations of human rights in the town where Malala was raised. The Taliban did not tolerate girls being educated because they " ... tend to have greater freedom to exercise their agency in family decisions" (Ahmad, 2012). In fact, when the Taliban took over the SWAT region of Pakistan, they closed " ... 63 schools, affecting 103,000 girls"; women could not leave their homes without a veil and an accompanying close male relative (Ahmad, 19). Moreover, women were not allowed to have jobs, get an education, or receive treatment by male doctors; the situation went much farther than misogyny, it was all-out violent repression against the female gender.

TWO: Data Collection on Social History (strengths, patterns in Malala's life)

Malala's father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, once approached becoming a radical Islamist; Malala was just a teenager when her father " ... dreamt of jihad and prayed for martyrdom" until a close family friend talked him out of these restless thoughts (Bennett-Jones, 2013). But in his post-radical years he became a champion of girls' education; and in fact he ran girls schools. His influence no doubt helped create Malala's strong reading habit; she is clearly an intellectually strong young woman, who is known to have read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time at the age of 11. All this in the face of the Taliban's edict in January, 2009, that "... no school should educate girls"; the Taliban raided homes searching for books; and when they came to Malala's house she hid her books under her bed. She was bright, alert, articulate, and wasn't satisfied just to get an education; she wanted all girls to go to school.

Psychologically this is a young woman who was very well-balanced in life, who clearly understood the restrictive political / social regime she lived under, but nonetheless she never stopped learning, reading, asking questions, and writing positive, mature essays. Even though the Taliban had a habit of leaving " ... piles of headless corpses on the streets each morning" in towns near Malala, she was not intimidated. She became well-known as an advocate for girls to be educated, to have access to books, and she was interviewed many times on local television about her goal to open schools for girls in Pakistan. She also spoke at events with her father to promote girls' education; journalists showed up and wrote about her presentations so the Taliban had plenty of information if they decided to find her.

In her book, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban, she describes Tuesday, October 9, 2012. Her school was nondescript, so as to protect it from the brutality of the Taliban. It gave " ... no hint of what lies beyond," and walking through the doorway " ... was like a magical entrance to our own special world" (Yousafzai, 2013). She said most of her classmates aspired to be physicians, and "It's hard to imagine that anyone...

Meanwhile, while riding the bus to school that day, a " ... young, bearded man in light-colored clothes" stopped the bus and asked, "Who is Malala?" It turns out Malala was the only girl whose face wasn't covered. "He lifted up a black pistol. I later learned it was a Colt 45. My friends say he fired three shots ... the first went through my left eye socket and out under my left shoulder" and the other two hit girls beside her (Yousafzai, 6).
Road to Recovery -- Relevant Contexts to Malala's Incredible Story

Imagine the emotional experience of the other girls in that bus. A dear friend is shot in the face and blood is gushing from her eye, all in the context of riding a bus to school. Malala had been aware that she might be shot some day, and had dreams (nightmares) that she and her father were being gunned down. In the Pakistani hospital, her uncle described her as having " ... excruciating pain and being unable to stop moving her arms and legs," and once the bullet was removed from her neck and after that surgery, she did not respond for three days (Brumfield, 2013). After four weeks in a Pakistani hospital, still unconscious, she was flown to the UK where she was admitted to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. She underwent surgery to repair her skull, and in time, she was discharged. When the Taliban heard she was recovering fully, they vowed, "We will certainly kill her" (Brumfield, p. 4).

Journalists that covered the massive rallies in Pakistan (in support of her courage) were threatened by the Taliban. She had a college named after her but she urged the prime minister and foreign minister to avoid naming schools after her lest they be attacked.

THREE: Assessment Formulation -- Malala Amazes the World

Malala's bio-social factors included: a) the constant threat of violence; b) the burden of intimidation by a fanatical group determined to stop girls from learning; c) her father gave her moral and public support in her quest to allow girls to attend school; and d) even after near-death and recovery, she has not stopped her goal of liberating girls from the chains of oppression vis-a-vis the denial of opportunities to advance socially and intellectually.

Regarding Malala's psychosocial situation before and after being shot, she has shown remarkable adjustment to bigotry, violence, hate and intimidation, and stands very tall in the eyes of the developed world. To wit, as a 17-year-old, three years after being shot in the head by an Islamic Jihadist fanatic, there she stood before an audience in Oslo, Norway, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, the youngest Peace Prize laureate in history. "This award is not for me. It is for those forgotten children who want education. It is for those frightened children who want peace. It is for those voiceless children who want change. I am here to stand up for their rights, to raise their voice. It is not time to pity them" (Engel, 2014). The only intervention processes that Malala went through were medical emergencies.

FOUR: Theory Integration -- Malala's Impact on the World

Looking at Malala's remarkable story, one can easily link her life to Criterion 2 and Criterion 4 of the Strength Theory. She was able to show the world, in the face of nearly dying from a bullet to the face, that humans are capable of self-transformation. She never doubted herself as she went from an innocent but bright young girl attending a hidden school, to a spokesperson for the rights of all girls to get an education. Courage is an understatement when relating her challenges to Pakistani society to allow all girls to learn. Criterion 2 from Charles A. Rapp and Richard j. Goscha posits that "assets, strengths, and protective factors" are discovered in ordinary people who have had a "posttraumatic event" like Malala experienced. As to Criterion 4, which embraces the idea of social justice, obviously Malala's goal in Pakistan (after Pakistan) was to liberate girls from "the arbitrary control of others," namely the Taliban. She didn't need a psychologist, or a psychiatrist, to find her way past the obstructions and threats from the violence of the Taliban. She became her own force for justice and moral strength.

In conclusion, Malala was interviewed by The New York Times Book Review, and was asked if there was one book she would wish all girls could read; she answered: "The Breadwinner." Why did she recommend that book? "The book tells…