Refugee Mental Health

This book is an in-depth practical guide for mental health practitioners working across diverse theoretical orientations to provide mental health services tailored to the needs of refugees. These needs are felt more keenly than ever as displaced populations continue to grow. Refugees often experience high rates of psychological distress, and appropriate mental health care services remain severely underdeveloped.

Chapters in this edited volume outline research-supported psychological interventions that can be used in a culturally sensitive manner. They cover important topics like cultural humility, issues in screening and assessments, and specific ethical dilemmas when working with refugees. The book explores the ways in which Western interventions such as cognitive behavior therapy, group therapy, expressive therapy, and school-based programs have been adapted to serve resettled refugee populations.

Strengths and limitations of these approaches as well as recommendations for incorporating more holistic frameworks in practice are discussed, providing mental health professionals with a better understanding of the psychological issues associated with the refugee experience and best practices for treatment.

Chapter 1. Introduction to Refugee Mental Health
Jamie Aten and Jenny Hwang

Chapter 2. Primer on Understanding the Refugee Experience
Aimee Hilado, Emily Reznicek, and Samantha Allweiss

Chapter 3. Engaging Refugees With Cultural Humility
Laura E. Captari, Hadidja Nyiransekuye, Jolie Shelton Zaremba, Monica Gerber, Joshua N. Hook, Don E. Davis, Jesse Owen, and Daryl R. Van Tongeren

Chapter 4. Ethical Considerations and Challenges to Working With Refugees
Rachel Singer, Reness DeBoard-Luca, and Sombo Pujeh

Chapter 5. A Culturally Responsive Model for Modern Day Refugees: A Multi-Phase Model of Psychotherapy, Social Justice, and Human Rights
Fred Bemak and Rita Chi-Ying Chung

Chapter 6. Culturally Adapted Therapeutic Approaches: The Healing Environment and Restorative Therapy Model (H.E.A.R.T.)
Richard F. Mollica, Eugene Augusterfer, and Nina Campanile

Chapter 7. Screening and Assessing Refugee Mental Health Needs
Alvin Kuowei Tay and Derrick Silove

Chapter 8. School-Based Mental Health Interventions and Other Therapies to Help Refugee Children Explore Previous Exposure to Trauma
Minal Fazel

Chapter 9. Treatment for Working With Refugee Families With Children
Aimee Hilado, Ann Chu, and Allegra Magrisso

Chapter 10. Peer, Group, and Community Strategies for Supporting Refugee Mental Health
Samantha Allweiss and Monica Connelly

Chapter 11. Integrating Indigenous and Traditional Practices in Refugee Mental Health Therapy
E. Anne Marshall

Chapter 12. Reflections on and Future Directions for Research and Practice in Refugee Mental Health
Jenny Hwang, Jamie Aten, and Kent Annan

Jamie D. Aten, PhD, is the founder and executive director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute and associate professor and Blanchard Chair of the Humanitarian Disaster Leadership program at Wheaton College. He is a disaster psychologist and disaster ministry expert.

He has received more than $6 million in grant funding to study disasters, trauma, and faith issues around the globe and has been recognized with APA's Division 36 (Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality) Margaret Gorman Early Career Award and the Mutual of America Merit Finalist Award. Aten also received the 2016 FEMA Community Preparedness Champion Award at the White House.

He is the coeditor or coauthor of seven books, including three other APA titles. Visit him onlineopens in new window and Twitteropens in new window.

Jenny Hwang, MA, is the managing director for the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College. She earned a bachelor’s degree in clinical psychology from Boston College and a master’s in international disaster psychology from the University of Denver.

As a mental health professional, Hwang has worked with refugees from Burma, Iraq, Syria, Nepal, North Korea, Somalia, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Burundi.

Her research interests include global mental health in context to disaster settings, human trafficking, cross-cultural communication, and refugee and immigrant mental health.

Focused on the experience of resettling refugees—but appropriately set within the wider context of global displacement—the authors in these pages pull together key insights, information, and tools to support informed delivery of refugee mental health services. The book models an approach to the provision of services that is technically sound, culturally informed, and fundamentally humane.
—Alastair Ager, PhD, MSc, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, Scotland; Columbia University, New York, NY; editor of Refugees: Perspectives on the Experience of Forced Migration