Forced Migration and Mental Health: Rethinking the Care of Refugees and Displaced Persons (International and Cultural Psychology)

229 Pages·2004·2.85 MB·English

by  David Ingleby

Forced Migration
and Mental Health
Rethinking the Care of Refugees
and Displaced Persons
International and Cultural Psychology Series
Series Editor: Anthony Marsella, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii
ASIAN AMERICAN MENTAL HEALTH
Assessment Theories and Methods
Edited by Karen S. Kurasaki, Sumie Okazaki, and Stanley Sue
COUNSELING INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
Clients from Around the World
Written by Nancy Arthur
THE FIVE-FACTOR MODEL OF PERSONALITY ACROSS CULTURES
Edited by Robert R. McCrae and Jüri Allik
FORCED MIGRATION AND MENTAL HEALTH
Rethinking the Care of Refugees and Displaced Persons
Edited by David Ingleby
LEARNING IN CULTURAL CONTEXT
Family, Peers, and School
Edited by Ashley Maynard and Mary Martini
POVERTY AND PSYCHOLOGY
From Global Perspective to Local Practice
Edited by Stuart C. Carr and Tod S. Sloan
PSYCHOLOGY AND BUDDHISM
From Individual to Global Community
Edited by Kathleen H. Dockett, G. Rita Dudley-Grant, and C. Peter Bankart
TRAUMA INTERVENTIONS IN WAR AND PEACE
Prevention, Practice, and Policy
Edited by Bonnie L. Green, Matthew J. Friedman, Joop T.V.M. de Jong,
Susan D. Solomon, Terence M. Keane, John A. Fairbank, Brigid Donelan,
and Ellen Frey-Wouters
A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each
new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further
information please contact the publisher.
Forced Migration
and Mental Health
Rethinking the Care of Refugees
and Displaced Persons
Edited by
David Ingleby
Utrecht University
Utrecht, The Netherlands
Springer
eBook ISBN: 0-387-22693-1
Print ISBN: 0-387-22692-3
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Contributors
Julia Bala is a psychologist and systems-oriented psychotherapist working for Centrum ’45
in Amsterdam (Treatment of and research into the consequences of organized violence) and
associated with Pharos Foundation (Refugees and Health Knowledge Center) in Utrecht.
Educated in former Yugoslavia and the USA, she has a PhD in psychology and her main
interests since arriving in the Netherlands in 1992 have been psychotherapy, research and
preventive projects related to refugee children and families. She has been developing
integrative models for their treatment, intervening on multiple system levels and fostering
resilience. She has authored many articles in professional journals and has contributed to
several edited volumes.
Ian Clifton-Everest is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Psychology, London Metropoli-
tan University where he teaches Developmental Psychology. He also works in conflict-ridden
areas of Africa, South America and the Middle East where he advises on the design of
psychosocial programs for the rehabilitation of war-affected children. He has a special
interest in the problems of children abducted into fighting forces. He has written on the
impact of violence on mental health, on conflict prevention, children’s rights, and education
for peace and development
Suman Fernando is Honorary Senior Lecturer in Mental Health at the European Centre for
Migration and Social Care studies (MASC), University of Kent and Visiting Professor at
Department of Applied Social Studies, London Metropolitan University London. He has
lectured and written widely on issues of race and culture in mental health. His most recent
books are Mental Health, Race and Culture edition Palgrave, 2002) and Cultural
Diversity, Mental Health and Psychiatry. The Struggle against Racism (Brunner-Routledge,
2003). Suman Fernando is a practicing psychiatrist and is also involved in community
organizations providing mental health services to minority ethnic communities in London. He
served on the Mental Health Act Commission (a government inspectorate) for nine years until
1995 and chaired its National Standing Committee on Race and Culture.
Choman Hardi does research at the European Centre for Migration and Social Care Studies
(MASC), University of Kent. She was born in Kurdistan (Iraq) and during her childhood her
family fled twice to Iran. After coming to England in 1993 she studied philosophy and
psychology at Queen’s College, Oxford and obtained an MA in philosophy at University
College, London. She is currently completing her PhD research on the mental health of
Kurdish women refugees and has been awarded a Leverhulme Scholarship to study women
survivors of Iraq’s Anfal campaign against the Kurds.
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vi Contributors
Choman Hardi is also a writer and has published three collections of poetry in Kurdish
and one collection in English (Life for us, Bloodaxe Books). She has also facilitated creative
writing workshops in the UK and abroad. She was the chair of Exiled Writers’ Ink!, an
organization of refugee writers.
Anders Hjern is Researcher at the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, Centre
for Epidemiology, Stockholm and community pediatrician in southern Stockholm. He has a
particular interest in public health issues in multicultural societies. He is Associate Professor
in Child and Adolescent Medicine at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and has published
more than 40 articles on public health issues related to inequality and migration in children
and youth.
David Ingleby is Professor of Intercultural Psychology at Utrecht University. After working
for the Medical Research Council in London and teaching in Social and Political Sciences at
Cambridge University, he moved in 1982 to Holland to take up a chair in Developmental
Psychology. Since 1991 he has concentrated on issues of migration and culture and was
awarded his present chair in 1999. His edited volume Critical Psychiatry: The politics of
mental health (Pantheon, 1980; Penguin, 1981) has just been reissued by Free Association
Books. Together with Charles Watters he teaches in the European MA network on
‘Migration, mental health and social care’. He has a lifelong interest in the social dimension
of psychology and in interdisciplinary research and practice.
Olle Jeppsson is a Pediatrician at Huddinge University Hospital, Karolinska Institutet,
Stockholm. He has been involved with clinical work with refugee families for many years
and has also worked on child health in Mozambique, Ethiopia, Angola, Lebanon and Yemen
as well as teaching international child health at the Karolinska Institute. During 1993-94 he
was employed by Swedish Save the Children to evaluate their programme in Kenya for un-
accompanied minors from Sudan.
Sander Kramer has been a researcher and teacher at the Utrecht School of Governance,
Utrecht University since 1995. He is also a social worker and has experience of residential
care and day care for children with learning and developmental problems, as well as
prevention programs for migrant youth. His interest in refugees and asylum seekers was
broadened by studying Cross-cultural Psychology at Utrecht University. He is currently
Course Leader in Utrecht of the European MA on ‘Migration, mental health and social care’
which is given simultaneously in England, Holland and Sweden.
Derrick Silove is Foundation Professor of Psychiatry at Liverpool Hospital, Sydney
(University of New South Wales) and visiting adjunct professor at Karolinska Institutet,
Stockholm. He is a long-serving board member of the Service for the Treatment and
Contributors vii
Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS), Sydney, also working in the
Service as a psychiatrist. He currently directs the East Timor National Mental Health Project.
His main interest is in pursuing research, advocacy, service planning and social development
for refugees, asylum seekers and societies recovering from conflict and oppression. He has
published over 150 journal articles, book chapters, monographs and major reports, most in
the field of refugee/post-conflict mental health.
Paul Stubbs is Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Economics, Zagreb, Croatia. Born in the
UK, he was trained as a sociologist and has lived and worked in Croatia since 1993. He is
currently researching the role of international actors in regional development. His main
interests, reflected in research, activism and consultancy are: social policy and welfare
governance in post-Yugoslav countries; peace-building and social development; community
development and mobilization; corporate social responsibility and social reporting; civil soci-
ety and social movements; online activism; and ethnographies of aid and development. His
critical stance on ‘war trauma’ derives from grassroots work in refugee camps in Croatia and
from sociological analyses of mental health professionals. Many of his publications can be
downloaded from http://www.gaspp.org (website of the Globalism and Social Policy
Programme).
Derek Summerfield is Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s
College, London and Research Associate, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. He
was formerly consultant to Oxfam and other aid agencies, and Principal Psychiatrist to the
Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture, London. He has been widely involved in
training, lecturing and publishing.
Charles Watters is Director of the European Centre for the Study of Migration and Social
Care (MASC), University of Kent. He is the author of a number of studies into the mental
health and social care of refugees and co-author of a study into good practice in the field,
drawing on a range of international examples. Recent interests include research on mental
health care for displaced persons in Brazil, an evaluation of the Breathing Space mental
health project for refugees, reception arrangements for young refugees in the UK, and
comparative international study of pathways to mental health and social care for refugees. He
is coordinator of the European MA program ‘Migration, mental health and social care’.
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Contents
1. EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION 1
David Ingleby
PART I. HUMANITARIAN AID AND RECONSTRUCTION
2. FROM TRAUMA TO SURVIVAL AND ADAPTATION: Towards a framework for
guiding mental health initiatives in post-conflict societies 29
Derrick Silove
3. TRANSFORMING LOCAL AND GLOBAL DISCOURSES: Reassessing the PTSD
movement in Bosnia and Croatia 53
Paul Stubbs
4. TRAUMATIC STRESS IN CONTEXT: A study of unaccompanied minors from
Southern Sudan 67
Olle Jeppsson and Anders Hjern
5. MEETING THE MENTAL HEALTH NEEDS OF CHILDREN WHO HAVE BEEN
ASSOCIATED WITH FIGHTING FORCES: Some lessons from Sierra Leone 81
Ian Clifton-Everest
PART II. SERVICE PROVISION IN HOST COUNTRIES
6. “MY WHOLE BODY IS SICK... MY LIFE IS NOT GOOD”: A Rwandan asylum
seeker attends a psychiatric clinic in London 97
Derek Summerfield
7. MENTAL HEALTH CARE FOR REFUGEE CHILDREN IN EXILE 115
Anders Hjern and Olle Jeppsson
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