Cultural challenges when working with people from refugee backgrounds

Rachel Cleary

Robert D. Schweitzer

pp. 208-220

in: Greg Nolan, William West (eds), Therapy, culture and spirituality, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015

Abstract

Most commonly, therapeutic work with members of communities from different cultures draws upon the dominant paradigm with its assumptions of what constitutes personhood in people from refugee backgrounds. From a Western perspective people from refugee backgrounds are often perceived as the "abject persons' fleeing from situations of conflict and representing the shadow of the modern nation state, where 'shadow" relates to disavowed aspects of self. In this chapter, we wish to argue that working with integrity with people from refugee backgrounds impels us to examine the assumptions which inform our practice and re-envision psychotherapeutic practice.