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Resilience-Oriented Treatment of Traumatised Asylum Seekers and Refugees

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Trauma and Migration

Abstract

Many mental health workers think their ability to treat asylum seekers and refugees is limited. They are often overwhelmed with feelings of powerlessness when they are confronted with the complexity of psychiatric problems, the past traumatic experiences and the present living problems. However, there is no need for such feelings. In the last decades, a lot of progress has been made, and both theoretical concepts and practical approaches are developed, which show accessible ways of helping this group of patients. That does not mean there are no obstacles and improvement is easy to reach. Many patients have more than one psychiatric disorder, they have a lot of concomitant somatic health problems and complaints, they have a high rate of disability and low quality of life and besides that they experience a lot of post-migration living problems. This complexity of the problems of asylum seekers and refugees reduces the applicability of routine treatment protocols.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. De Evenaar, North Netherlands Centre for Transcultural Psychiatry, Institute of Community Mental Health Care Drenthe, Altingerweg 1, Beilen, 9411PA, The Netherlands

    Cornelis J. Laban MD, PhD

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Correspondence to Cornelis J. Laban MD, PhD .

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  1. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the Charité, St. Hedwig Hospital, Berlin, Germany

    Meryam Schouler-Ocak

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Laban, C.J. (2015). Resilience-Oriented Treatment of Traumatised Asylum Seekers and Refugees. In: Schouler-Ocak, M. (eds) Trauma and Migration. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17335-1_13

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