Beyond borders

As frontiers close and migration is increasingly criminalized, the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement strives for a ‘response without distinction’ to legal status and relief along the perilous path

Beyond the discourse of trauma: shifting the focus on Sudanese refugees

The refugee label acknowledges the plight of people marginalized, oppressed and pushed to the periphery of society. While having this status affords a number of rights from countries signatory to the 1951 UN convention, the concept of 'refugeehood' within resettlement contexts can become a master status that defines a person above and beyond any other form of identity. Drawing upon political theories of recognition, this dilemma is addressed by examining the powerful current Western discourses on trauma where refugees are often situated.

Asylum seekers'perspectives on their mental health and views on health and social services: contributions for service provision using a mixed-methods approach

The literature tends to use ‘asylum seeker’ and ‘refugee’ interchangeably, creating uncertainty about the mental health of asylum seekers. However, asylum seekers occupy a unique position in British society which differentiates them from people with refugee status and which may have implications for their mental health. For example, ‘asylum seekers’ are supported and accommodated in dispersal areas under the National Asylum Support Service and they are not entitled to work.

Auschwitz never again

Lecture by Hon. Louise Arbour, President & CEO, International Crisis Group to the Dutch Auschwitz Committee, Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, 27 January 2010

Barèmes et syndromes psychotraumatiques = Tables of disability and psycho-traumatic syndromes

Les barèmes d'invalidité existent depuis l'Antiquité, mais leurs applications aux séquelles de traumatismes psychiques ne datent véritablement que de la fin du xixe siècle, avec l'évolution des politiques sociales, l'industrialisation et les guerres européennes. La traduction en chiffres d'une souffrance psychique, si elle s'avère utile sur le plan administratif pour calculer les indemnisations, soulève des problèmes de cohérence clinique et de justice quand elle devient une contrainte rigide et sans nuances. La barèmisation s'applique en fait très mal aux psychotraumatismes.

Association between abnormal psychosocial situations in childhood, generalized anxiety disorder and oppositional defiant disorder

OBJECTIVE: Psychosocial stressors are important in the pathogenesis of most mental disorders. However, little is known about the way psychosocial stressors uniquely combine to create risk for different expressions of child and adolescent psychopathology. The purpose of this study was to determine whether core dimensions of stressful psychosocial situations are differentially associated with childhood generalized anxiety disorder and oppositional defiant disorder.

Aqualitative study of clinicians' use of the cultural formulation model in assessing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Abstract The Cultural Formulation (CF) of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) provides a potential framework for improving the diagnostic assessment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in culturally diverse patients. We analyzed data from the Patient-Provider Encounte Study, a multi-site study that examines the process of diagnosis and clinical decision-making during an initial clinical intake session, in order to examine use of CF for PTSD diagnosis.

An Exploratory Analysis of Voice Hearing in Chronic PTSD: Potential Associated Mechanisms

This research investigated auditory hallucinations (AH) in a sample with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and examined dissociation and thought suppression as potential associated mechanisms.

Affective scripts: a systematic case study of change in psychotherapy

This article presents a systematic case study of maladaptive interpersonal schemas. These schemas are conceived of as affective scripts, or sequences of behaviors that regulate emotion in interpersonal relationships. Part I presents a test of the method for identifying affective scripts. Independent raters applied FRAMES (Fundamental Repetitive and Maladaptive Emotion Structures, Hoelzer & Dahl, 1996) to a representative sample of transcripts of a long-term psychotherapy.

A systematic review of treatments of posttraumatic stress disorder among refugees and asylum-seekers

Recent years have seen a consensus emerge on the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the general population. No such consensus exists for refugees, although the rate of PTSD among refugees is 10 times that of the general population. We conducted a systematic review of randomized controlled trial of treatment of PTSD among refugees and asylum-seekers. We rated trials with a risk of bias table and drew conclusions about the evidence for individual therapies. Ten randomized, controlled trials (n = 528) met our search criteria.

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