Traumatized Refugees in Psychotherapy

Abstract

This pre- and posttreatment study of 22 severely traumatized adult refugees spanned a mean of 6.5 years. Changes in personality functioning, mental health, and well-being were examined using the Rorschach Performance Assessment System, Harvard Trauma Questionnaire, Hopkins Symptom Checklist–25, and the World Health Organization’s Quality of Life–BREF questionnaire. A paired samples t -test revealed significant improvement after psychotherapy in traumatic ideation and initial severe disruptions in thought processes, reality testing, perception, self and other representations, and relational capacity (Cohen’s d = 0.46–0.59). Symptoms of anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress were significantly reduced ( d = 0.54–0.84), quality of life in the physical health and psychological health domains increased significantly ( d = 0.87 and 0.97), and percentage of participants with exile language proficiency and work/study status increased significantly. The findings demonstrate the potential of psychotherapy to contribute to normalizing perceptual, cognitive, and relational capacities in severely traumatized refugees, paramount to well-being and functioning in exile.

Pre- and Postpsychotherapy Assessment of a Patient With Retrograde Amnesia

“…It also fits well with the patient’s initial complaints, described above, of intrusion of unwanted thoughts and preoccupation with unpleasant memories. The same lowering of complexity following psychotherapy was recently found by Opaas and Hartmann (2021) in their study of traumatized refugees. It seems likely that a similar process could have been manifested in this case.…”

Convergence in a multi‐method study between Rorschach and self‐report data of traumatized refugees assessed before and after psychotherapy

“…A main strength of the study is the use of evidence‐based R‐PAS measures of trauma‐related personality characteristics (Meyer et al, 2011; Mihura et al, 2013; Opaas & Hartmann, 2013, 2021) and the use of internationally recognized and widely used self‐report instruments for measuring mental health symptoms (Mollica et al, 2004) and quality of life (WHOQOL Group, 1998) among refugees. Another value is the fact that we in accordance with recommendations from researchers in the refugee field (Carlsson et al, 2014) and from the statistics field, used “more than one trait as well as more than one method” (p. 81, Campbell & Fiske, 1959) in the evaluation process.…”

“…Different parts of the study have been published through the years (see e.g., Opaas & Hartmann, 2013; Opaas et al, 2016; Opaas et al, 2022). For the present study aim, we used the data set from a recent psychotherapy follow‐up study of 22 participants from the larger study (Opaas & Hartmann, 2021). The aim of the psychotherapy follow‐up study was to examine changes in trauma‐related personality functioning, symptoms of PTSD, anxiety and depression, and four quality of life domains from psychotherapy start to after termination of therapy.…”

“…Owing to disparity in treatment length and availability of the participants, the time between the two assessments ranged from 2.9 to 10.3 years (M = 6.5, SD = 2.6). There were no significant differences in the pretreatment assessment results between the 22 participants and the remainders of the initial group of 51 (Opaas & Hartmann, 2021). Information about the 22 participants and their treatment has been described in detail in Opaas and Hartmann (2021).…”

“…There were no significant differences in the pretreatment assessment results between the 22 participants and the remainders of the initial group of 51 (Opaas & Hartmann, 2021). Information about the 22 participants and their treatment has been described in detail in Opaas and Hartmann (2021).…”