Some refugees lose the ability to trust or form positive relationships, according to experts at the Helen Bamber Foundation, a British charity that supports survivors of human rights violations. When they can feel they’re in a protected place, they can start talking about their trauma.”
“What I hope to do is first of all is listen. They think they’re going mad,” said Barbieri. In Sicily’s Ragusa province, MSF says screening showed almost 40 percent of those suffering mental health effects had PTSD. They’ve been treated like beasts,” she said in a telephone interview.Īlmost half of 23 refugees assessed by doctors in Dresden, Germany met the diagnosis for PTSD, according to research published in the Nature journal Molecular Psychiatry in November. “They often say they have been imprisoned, beaten all day long, shot at, or scalded with boiling water. Working with charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in makeshift arrival camps in Sicily, she gives what she calls “psychological first aid” to migrants arriving after months or years making their escape through the desert, through Libya, across the sea. Italian psychotherapist Aurelia Barbieri is one of a handful of volunteer mental health experts on Europe’s front line.
So therapists in Europe are honing their skills in relatively new, refugee-focused psychological techniques such as Narrative Exposure Therapy and Intercultural Psychotherapy. PTSD plagues sufferers with flashbacks and panic attacks, and can render them sleepless, emotionally volatile and less likely to be able to settle into a new home.ĭeploying mainstream therapies designed for victims of single-event trauma in stable, well-funded settings - such as returning soldiers or car crash survivors - will not tackle this migrant mental health crisis effectively, specialists say. REUTERS/Antonio Parrinello/FilesĪmong the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Syria, Afghanistan and other war-torn areas, significant numbers are likely to have severe psychiatric illnesses, including complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), according to studies in peer-reviewed scientific journals. A migrant waits to disembark from a Coast Guard ship in the Sicilian harbour of Messina, Italy in this Augfile photo.
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