In this prescient and sensitive volume, Aida Alayarian looks at how psychoanalysis in group settings can benefit refugees who have experienced trauma, with an express focus on transference and countertransference. Group Analysis for Refugees Experiencing Trauma offers a comprehensive overview of trauma from a psychoanalytic perspective, before delving into the nuance of trauma experienced by asylum seekers, refugees and those who have gone through forced migration. Through clinical vignettes, Alayarian highlights the importance of the resilience that can be brought about from group sessions and shared experience in helping to heal the wounds of trauma. She looks at the vital role of social injustice in this trauma and shows how this can be directly applied to work with other groups experiencing human rights violations, destitution, and loss. She shows how looking at relational patterns as a means of understanding conscious, unconscious, and subconscious thought processes can provide essential breakthroughs with patients, as well as the importance of paying close attention to countertransference to avoid a breakdown of the clinical relationship. Using psychoanalytic theories from intercultural perspectives to show the multidimensional nature of work with trauma patients, this book is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health experts working with refugees and patients experiencing trauma.

In this prescient and sensitive volume, Aida Alayarian looks at how psychoanalysis in group settings can benefit refugees who have experienced trauma, with an express focus on transference and countertransference. Group Analysis for Refugees Experiencing Trauma offers a comprehensive overview of trauma from a psychoanalytic perspective, before delving into the nuance of trauma experienced by asylum seekers, refugees and those who have gone through forced migration. Through clinical vignettes, Alayarian highlights the importance of the resilience that can be brought about from group sessions and shared experience in helping to heal the wounds of trauma. She looks at the vital role of social injustice in this trauma and shows how this can be directly applied to work with other groups experiencing human rights violations, destitution, and loss. She shows how looking at relational patterns as a means of understanding conscious, unconscious, and subconscious thought processes can provide essential breakthroughs with patients, as well as the importance of paying close attention to countertransference to avoid a breakdown of the clinical relationship. Using psychoanalytic theories from intercultural perspectives to show the multidimensional nature of work with trauma patients, this book is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health experts working with refugees and patients experiencing trauma.

The trauma of refugee status is particularly corrosive. It does the usual harm of devastating our own self-image and sense of permanence in the world, but it does more. It is a dislocation from our familiar domestic geography and culture, and that must wrench from our grasp all the external markers by which we know ourselves and our worth. The thre

There is a wide gap between the psychological needs of the children of refugees and the services provided. Refugees' home countries, cultures, and social make-up are widely diversified, and their needs cannot be readily consolidated. This diversity of interest and need goes unacknowledged by the service-providers who may treat them as a single, homogenous group. Some refugees' needs are exaggerated, while others are ignored. This approach often ignores the justifiable and legitimate interest of refugees' psychological wellbeing. Many children of refugees may struggle with questions of race, ethnicity, language barriers, and other socio-political and economic issues that can influence their mental health and psychological wellbeing. Preoccupations of the child's emotions with those issues therefore have effects on child personality formations. Apart from having an overview of the relevant processes involved in therapeutic work and possible challenges therein, it is also important for the therapist to have an overview of the child's situation in the past and any current issues, which this book provides.

Theoretical material is presented in close conjunction with clinical data in the form of vignettes and case studies to illustrate the key points outlined in this book, which focuses on the multidimensional approach to the understanding of childhood trauma. It examines the contributions of psychoanalysis, emphasising the act of 'dissociation' (healthy and unhealthy). Specific attention is given to the internalisation of the m/other/object as the 'listening other', and the dissociated part/s that may results in an over idealised yet feared object. The final discussion focuses on how patients in therapy become able to transform fears into 'psychic space' and to break away from vulnerability, by developing a better 'sense of self', as the result of having the therapist as the 'listening other'.

This book is a psychoanalytic discussion on the effects of trauma and torture on children, with a specific focus on how professionals can use an approach focused on resiliency rather than vulnerability to help the child reach wellbeing.The author argues that in a world where the torture, maltreatment and neglect of children shamefully persist, it is incumbent upon all of us to intervene appropriately to put a stop to it. Whether in conference rooms developing more comprehensive policy to hold perpetrators accountable or working in clinics where traumatized children and their families seek help, the question of how we act to improve the opportunity for recovery in children and youth people subjected to such inhumane treatment should be our primary concern. This book discusses this salient issue, drawing on psychoanalytic perspectives of the effects of trauma on children, looking specifically at the case of refugee children and families. Understanding challenging behavior in traumatized children and the effects of refugee experience on families can help all concerned to offer more appropriate and effective support. Through the presentation of case studies, this study traces the complexity of individual refugee experience while demonstrating the impact of good practice underpinned by an intercultural, resilience-focused approach. In an effort to eradicate torture and maltreatment of children globally, the author points to the necessity of developing appropriate methods of intervention as a responsibility to the children and families we serve and our societies as a whole.

There is a wide gap between the psychological needs of the children of refugees and the services provided. Refugees' home countries, cultures, and social make-up are widely diversified, and their needs cannot be readily consolidated. This diversity of interest and need goes unacknowledged by the service-providers who may treat them as a single, homogenous group. Some refugees' needs are exaggerated, while others are ignored. This approach often ignores the justifiable and legitimate interest of refugees' psychological wellbeing. Many children of refugees may struggle with questions of race, ethnicity, language barriers, and other socio-political and economic issues that can influence their mental health and psychological wellbeing. Preoccupations of the child's emotions with those issues therefore have effects on child personality formations. Apart from having an overview of the relevant processes involved in therapeutic work and possible challenges therein, it is also important for the therapist to have an overview of the child's situation in the past and any current issues, which this book provides.

The trauma of refugee status is particularly corrosive. It does the usual harm of devastating our own self-image and sense of permanence in the world, but it does more. It is a dislocation from our familiar domestic geography and culture, and that must wrench from our grasp all the external markers by which we know ourselves and our worth. The threat of persecution, torture, and death is aimed at a complete destabilization. The result is a complex of anxieties that add up to far more than simple suffering. If therapy is primarily aimed at the gentle exposure of one 's worst fears, then what purchase can it have on this most ungentle process of becoming a refugee?