Mental Health of Refugees and Asylum Seekers

ABOUT THIS BOOK

• Presents the theory and practice behind treating refugees and asylums seekers, helping the reader understand their unique problems, and how they can best be helped
• Written by people with considerable experience working with this population, providing authoritative and reliable advice on how to treat mental health problems in this community
• Includes coverage of mental health problems across all age ranges, including those of child refugees

Thoughout the world the number of refugees and asylum seekers continues to increase at an astonishing rate. Given that most will have left their country due to persecution, war, or appalling violations of their human rights, many will have specific mental health needs. Cultural and socioeconomic factors play a major role in expressions of distress, help seeking, pathways into care, and acceptance or rejection of treatments. Being a refugee or asylum seeker raises questions about an individual's self respect and altered identity. Too often though, the needs of this population are ignored by policy makers and clinicians, and these people are left to fend for themselves.

Mental Health of Refugees and Asylum Seekers presents both the theoretical and practical aspects of the mental health needs of refugees and asylum seekers. It looks at the impact of migration on mental health and adjustment, collective trauma, individual identity, and diagnostic fallacies. A practical section highlights cultural factors, ethnopsychopharmacology, therapeutic interaction, therapeutic expectation and psychotherapy. The final part of the book focuses on special problems - such as bereavement, sexual violence, and post traumatic stress disorders, as well as considering mental health problems in special groups, such as child refugees.

This book will be an essential resource for all mental health professionals- helping them better understand the needs of refugees and asylum seekers, how their problems can be managed, and how they can best be helped.

Readership: Mental health professionals, primary care practitioners, voluntary agencies with refugees and asylum seekers.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1: Dinesh Bhugra and Pedro Ruiz: Introduction: Refugees and asylum seekers: conceptual issues
2: Tom Craig: Mental distress and psychological interventions in refugee populations
3: Thomas Stompe, David Holzer, and Alexander Friedmann: Pre-migration and mental health of refugees
4: Helen Herrman, Ida Kaplan, and Josef Szwarc: Post-migration and mental health in Australia
5: K.S. Bhui and Nasir Warfa: Psychiatric diagnoses and assessment issues for refugees and asylum seekers
6: Daya Somasundaram: Complex mental health problems of refugees
7: Sean Cross, Jim Crabb, and Rachel Jenkins: International refugee policy
8: Pedro Ruiz, Susham Gupta, and Dinesh Bhugra: Dealing with cultural differences
9: Pedro Ruiz: Therapeutic skills and therapeutic expectations
10: J. David Kinzie, John Mark Kinzie: Treatment goals and therapeutic actions
11: Keh-Ming Lin, Tonya Fancher, and Freda Cheung: Psychopharmacology for asylum seekers and refugees
12: Russell Lim and Alan Koike: Psychotherapy and refugees
13: Nick Grey, Damon Lab, and Kerry Young: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
14: Lakshmi Vijayakumar amd A. T. Jotheeswarma: Suicide in refugees and asylum seekers
15: Wojtek Wojcik, Dinesh Bhugra, and Tom Craig: Loss and cultural bereavement
16: Julia Huemer and Panos Vostanis: Child refugees and refugee families
17: Gill Mezey and Ajoy Thachil: Sexual violence and refugees
18: Derrick Silove and Susan Rees: Paternalism or autonomy?: ethics, ideology and science in refugee mental health interventions
19: Sean Cross and Jim Crabb: Impact on clinicians
20: K.S. Bhui, Nasir Warfa, and Salaad Mohamud: Mental health service provision for asylum seekers and refugees
21: Dinesh Bhugra, Tom Craig, and K.S. Bhui: Conclusions

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Edited by Dinesh Bhugra, Professor of Mental Health & Cultural Diversity, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, UK, Tom Craig, Professor of Social Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, UK, and Kamaldeep Bhui, Professor of Cultural Psychiatry and Epidemiology, Barts & The London, Queen Mary School of Medicine & Dentistry; Hon Consultant Psychiatrist, East London NHS Foundation Trust. President-Elect, World Association of Cultural Psychiatry; Trustee of Careif; Chair of Afiya Trust; Public health lead, Royal College of Psychiatrists, London, UK