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Tiger! Tiger! What is the experience of trauma and transition into adulthood of African refugee and asylum-seeking care leavers?
Get PDFThis study explores the experiences of trauma and transition into adulthood of
African refugee and asylum-seeking care leavers in the UK. It aims to help
practitioners better understand the impact of trauma on these young people and give
them voice. Giving voice generates better research and develops the confidence of
refugees (Temple and Moran, 2006).
These young people make perilous journeys to the UK and battle traumatic
experiences with the challenges of transitioning in a hostile environment. Supporting
them is a challenge for local authorities. Despite these issues, there is little previous
research interest about the experiences of trauma and transition into adulthood of
African refugee and asylum-seeking care leavers in the UK.
Psychoanalytically informed Free Association Narrative Interviews (FANI) were used
to explore six young people’s unconscious processes. Cross-case analysis identified
similarities in their stories but there were divergences and complexities in their
trajectories.
The young people felt relieved for telling their stories. Their mental health issues can
be difficult to detect and transition into adulthood could deteriorate if faced with
restrictions and barriers. Immigration status could impact their trajectories. Pre-migratory trauma, separation from family and adapting to a new system could
exacerbate their trauma. They rated emotional support highly and felt that trauma
could make them stronger. Their closeness or openness to the researcher is non-linear.
The study concluded that the young people’s experience is complex. Practitioners
need to be attentive to their inner world and external circumstances to better
understand and support them. A more open practice and development of a
psychosocial approach is recommended. Also, opportunities for the young people to
tell their stories and be treated as individuals. It recommends future comparative
study of the experiences and trajectories of young people coming to Western Europe
from Africa with those from other continents and between those from British and non-British colonies
RESPARK: Igniting hope and joy after trauma and depression
No full textHow can we respark joy and hope after despondency, numbness or trauma? Acclaimed psychotherapist and trauma expert, Graham Music, in his 6th book, distils decades of experience to deliver a roadmap for reigniting zest and passion in troubled adults and children.
In these testing times many feel unmotivated and have lost their mojo. Some are listless, retreating inwards afer trauma or loneliness, some become addicted to screens or meaningless activities, and many have lost passion in the face of life's challenges .
Through fascinating tales from the consulting room and daily life, this book provides a ground-breaking model to regenerate hope. Music weaves together cutting-edge science, profound personal stories, therapeutic wisdom, and deep humanity. He outlines exactly how to understand and heal from a wide range of emotionally blunted states such as dissociation, depression, or helplessness.
Whether you are a therapist, a professional, a parent, or anyone looking to find personal inspiration, this book offers a captivating and hope-filled journey, showing how people can rediscover the vitality and desire to live richer lives
Enhancing the well-being of front-line healthcare professionals in high pressure clinical environments: A mixed-methods evaluative research project
No full textBackground:
The last few years have witnessed a growing concern with the well-being of healthcare professionals internationally because of increasing recognition of its impact on patient outcomes and staff retention. The COVID-19 pandemic, which has placed additional and substantial pressure on frontline healthcare professionals, gives added urgency to the topic.
While numerous, and successful, interventions have been developed to address compromised well-being among healthcare professionals, they have not always been able to support the needs of frontline staff, specifically those working in high-pressure environments.
Objective:
This paper presents findings of an evaluative research study of an intervention, named the Resilience and Well-being Training Programme, developed and implemented within an Acute Assessment Unit in a hospital in the UK. The 8 week-long programme followed a combined approach (both person-directed and work-directed), with mindfulness training as well as lectures and discussions to deepen participants' understanding of organisational life. The training, delivered from January to July 2018, involved a total of 72 healthcare professionals from a wide range of levels (UK bands 2–8), trained in three cohorts.
Design:
The research followed a pre-post design to explore participants' experiences of working on the Unit, the programme and its impact on themselves and their working life.
Setting:
The study was conducted in a large NHS district general hospital in South London, UK.
Participants:
Participants included healthcare assistants and nurses who had completed their preceptorship, worked in the hospital's acute assessment unit, and had undertaken the resilience and well-being training programme.
Methods:
The study employed mixed methods (online questionnaire, face-to-face focus groups/interviews) to collect data.
Results:
Findings showed participants' positive experience with the programme, however it had limited positive impacts on aspects of compromised well-being at the personal level and a statistically significant enhancement of the quality of relationships and communication on the Unit, with medium effect size (Cohen's D). The programme had a positive impact on the culture of the Unit.
Conclusions:
Results highlight the demand for and value of programmes designed in ways that enable this group of professionals to take part, because these professionals are often not able to participate in such programmes. A strong commitment from the leadership to enable staff attendance in time-protected programmes is one approach that works well in the short-term. However, this may be challenging to accomplish and raises issues of sustainability
Witnessing and bearing witness. On offering systemic consultations and practices of solidarity at the Uyghur Tribunal
Get PDFThe experience of offering therapeutic support to the Uyghur Tribunal held in London in June and September 2021 powerfully brought home the critical variations in the meanings of witnessing and bearing witness and what they entail. In this paper, we explore the role of witnessing through offering systemic consultation to those who have experienced human rights violations and those who have witnessed these accounts and discuss our observations about the healing power of acts of resistance/activism.
We are four systemic psychotherapists, with a particular interest in narrative practices, and approaches that foreground social justice. With a concern not to become “failed witnesses” which Jessica Benjamin (2014) describes as “a failure of those not involved in the acts of injury to serve the function of acknowledging and actively countering or repairing the suffering and injury that they encounter as observers in the social world”, we attempt here to communicate our experience of witnessing and joining with, through practices of solidarity, those bearing witness at the People's Tribunal held to hear evidence about China's alleged genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghur, Kazakh and other Turkic Muslim populations
Complex Trauma: The Tavistock model
No full textThe new diagnosis of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder presents diagnostic and treatment challenges that need to be grappled with, since, in a troubled world, it is increasingly important to understand the impact and aftermath of traumatic experiences and, crucially, how to work with those affected by them.
In Complex Trauma, Joanne Stubley and Linda Young have assembled a fascinating range of approaches in order to explore the questions of understanding and intervention. They detail the relevance of an applied psychoanalytic approach, both in the Tavistock Trauma Service and, more broadly, in illuminating understanding of traumatized individuals. The book includes chapters related to the impact of trauma on the body, as well as on the mind, incorporating neurobiological and attachment theory to develop ideas on the impact and aftermath of complex trauma. A number of specialist areas of trauma work are covered within this volume, including work with adolescents, with refugees and asylum seekers, with military veterans, and with survivors of child sexual abuse.
The editors bring together chapters that will be of interest to those working with traumatized individuals in a variety of settings and using different modalities. The central importance of relationships, as understood within the psychoanalytic model, is depicted throughout as being at the heart of understanding and working with traumatic experience
Under fire in the consulting room
No full textA slow match is a very slow-burning fuse presenting only a small glowing tip whereas a quick match is one, which once ignited, burns at top speed. In this paper, I will present a number of clinical vignettes to illustrate situations when the therapist realised there was a sudden unexpected rise in ‘temperature’ of a patient’s mind and why this may have occurred. A fuse was lit but was it a slow or a quick one? I will relate this ignition to the possibility of premature interpretations, or a failure to notice how anxious the patient was in the presence of the terrifying object-therapist and also, patients’ unexpected responses to external interferences during a session. Descriptions of how these situations unfolded during sessions are given, and how, upon reflection, these could have been diffused differently. The emphasis will be on how best to maintain a psychoanalytic stance but also how to clinically judge when a session must be terminated in order to protect patient and therapist from exploding ‘bombs’ inadvertently ignited by patient or therapist. The importance of supervision and consultation with colleagues will be stressed
Working with traumatised adolescents: A framework for intervention
No full textLemma and Young articulate particular difficulties that traumatized adolescents may face in negotiating developmental processes, such as separation and identity formation. Using a clinical case, they elaborate on the role of identificatory processes and omnipotence post-trauma and emphasize the importance of the body