For World Refugee Day it felt right to share an extract from A Practical Guide to Therapeutic Work with Asylum Seekers and Refugees by Angelina Jalonen and Paul Cilia La Corte.
Chapter 1 ‘The Refugee Experience’ serves as an introduction to the life of a refugee by breaking down their experience into stages . These stages are commonly thought of in 3 steps, ‘before, during and after’ or ‘pre-flight, flight and post-flight’. The authors subscribe to a four stage breakdown which they argue better captures the trauma and scale of upheaval that refugees face. These stages are; the ‘Homeland Phase of Apprehension’, the ‘Persecution Phase of Terror’, the ‘Asylum Phase of Hope and Fear’, and the ‘Rebuilding Phase of Relief and Sadness’.
For more detail on these read chapter 1 here
Jalonen and La Corte’s book provides an accessible interdisciplinary guide that shows helping professionals how to achieve effective, therapeutically informed care for refugees. Using three core principles across four key stages of a refugee’s experience, it’s the essential tool for professionals helping refugees to recover and integrate in their host country.
If you would like to buy the book, or find out more about it, please follow this link.
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