Broken Spirits: The Treatment of Traumatized Asylum Seekers, Refugees and War and Torture Victims

Description

Mental health problems among asylum seekers and refugees are becoming a public issue, but awareness of this problem among the mental health community is relatively low. Although advances have been made in the provision of innovative mental health services for asylum seekers and refuges with PTSD, they are not systemized, and not widely known to professionals in the field. A publication offering practical guidelines for the treatment of torture victims and political refugees does not exist. Broken Spirits aims to bring together the works of the most respected mental health professionals - from the U.S. and abroad - and make available the most current knowledge on complex PTSD, forced migration and cultural sensitivity in diagnosis and treatment.

"Make no mistake, this is a powerful book. If you work in this area, or aspire to, it will give you tools and models and a great deal of insight and understanding. It will challenge you as well. Yet in the work with the trauma victim who has survived horrors of a kind that are so outside of our 'normality', it is perhaps our sense of humanity that is our most powerful tool. It is from this that the spirit within us reaches out to the spirit within the other and some form of psychological restoration of the spirit becomes possible." - Richard Bryant-Jefferies, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, UK "This volume represents an important contribution to this expanding and is anticipated to have a high impact on both policy and future research. The volume is an excellent handbook for all those who are interested in the treatment of traumatized asylum seekers, refugees, war, and torture victims, including the educated general reader or policymaker with an interest in contemporary work on trauma. Libraries will want to add this to their collections, and one supects the book entice readers from diverse fields, including psychology, anthropolgy, sociology, human development, social work, nursing, and psychiatry. It offers a starting point for the novice as well as a contemporary literature review of this expanding field for the specialist, the current volume ought to remain an important contribution for some time." - Grant J. Rich, APA, PsycCRITIQUES "As Volkan writes in his introduction, the topic is both timeless and timely...Professionals interested in or involved with mental health care for asylum seekers and refugees can find new insights and inspirations in many of the chapters..." - Loes H. M. van Willigen, Journal of Refugee Studies "John Wilson and Boris Drozdek bring an important collection of articles to the reader of trauma literature and to therapists who have the potential of seeing specific forms of trauma reflecting the cruelty witnessed in this volume...it will be one of the more interesting volumes that you will likely read in a while." - Tom Schumacher, in The Repetition & Avoidance Quarterly "...This book is especially valuable to those who work in the field of care and assistance for refugees. A few chapters are extremely valuable for those who work with populations in affected regions and countries. However, the other chapters contain important insights in the condition of refugees, cultural peculiarities and treatments that can be adapted and tested in those areas where the vast majority of displaced people and refugees seek shelter. The book presents the reader the actual state of the art in both theory and practice of care for refugees and other victims of trauma. In addition, it invites for further study and thought, and the development of proper and effective therapeutic or community interventions. It is worth a thorough read." - Petra Aarts, Intervention: International Journal of Mental Health, Psychosocial Work, and Counselling in Areas of Armed Conflict "We have in this volume a significant and comprehensive text on a theme that has become what is in effect a new discipline within therapeutic provision. Broken Spirits will provide you with theoretical as well as practical insight into the effects of traumatic experience on the person, and methods of response to help restore them to stronger psychological functioning. Make no mistake, this is a powerful book. If you work in this area, it will give you tools and models and a great deal of insight and understanding. It will challenge you as well." - Richard Bryant-Jefferies, Head of Equalities and Diversity, CNWL NHS Foundation Trust, and author of Counseling Victims of Warfare