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Trauma and survival in African humanitarian entrants to Australia

chapter
posted on 2023-05-22, 17:57 authored by Copping, AN, Shakespeare- Finch, JE
Former refugees have been resettled in Australia since the 1940’s through the Humanitarian Migration Stream. This chapter highlights the impact of forced migration and the refugee experience of trauma on survival. The journey from pre-migration crises, to the process of fleeing one’s country, through to the challenges associated with resettlement, can have a significant impact on the mental health of Humanitarian Entrants to Australia. Differences in culture can have an impact on the meaning constructed from these experiences, and on help-seeking behaviour and preferred methods of intervention. To date, Western mental health services have used an understanding of trauma based on pathology and largely individualist intervention techniques. In this chapter, however, we seek to understand the experience of trauma for former refugees from a salutogenic perspective, and acknowledge community based coping methods and the strengths and resilience of former refugees. Using the construct of posttraumatic growth, adaptive factors of strength, religion, compassion, and new possibilities are identified as relevant to African Humanitarian Entrants in Australia.

History

Publication title

Mass Trauma: Impact and Recovery Issues

Editors

KM Gow and M Celenski

Pagination

331-348

ISBN

9781620815571

Department/School

School of Health Sciences

Publisher

NOVA Science Publishers

Place of publication

United States

Extent

20

Rights statement

Copyright 2013 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Specific population health (excl. Indigenous health) not elsewhere classified

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