Untreated trauma is a ticking time bomb impacting individuals and is a public hazard tragedy for societies.
Credit: Nature, October 10, 2016 ,doi:10.1038/538158a
"Nearly 6,000-person caseload sampling from Syrians there, 31 percent have severe emotional disorders. Within this categorization, 20 percent have depressive disorders like anxiety and 6 percent suffer from bipolar disorders. Schizophrenia, at 10 percent, was the most common form of psychotic illness across the region."
Karen Leigh, The New York Times, August 1, 2014
Atrocity in Australia's Detention Centers
"The impact that it has over time on the asylum seeker is … a kind of demoralisation syndrome. And so, what you find on a day-to-day level, is that people relinquish their responsibilities of all kinds. They’re living in a wire cage, and their every need is being serviced by someone else, and they have no control over that. They have no control over when they’re fed, how long they can spend in a shower or toilet, they have no control over their lives, so people relinquish control, and they vegetate, they start to get into this dissociative vegetative state that we know is very common with trauma, and then everything suffers.
Domestic violence increases for example, in the heat, and the oppression and the monotony and boredom that goes along with it, we get lots of lots family domestic stuff to deal with. At the other end of the scale, you get parents relinquishing their authority over their children, because their children are cared for. Children go away to school during the day then Save the Children [which has since left the island] come in and do some activities with them, and they’re kept busy and … we find that the parents relinquish their parenting skills and their parenting obligation to the children. The children, you don’t have to watch them, they can run around in the compound, they’re not going anywhere. Parents dissociate from their children, and pull back."
Paul Stevenson, June 20, 2016, The Guardian
A scene from the Beldangi-2 refugee camp, in eastern Nepal. (copyright: Salim Ali)
Experts sound alarm over mental health toll borne by migrants and refugees
Hazardous journeys and harsh conditions in camps linked with depression, anxiety and psychosis
Central American migrants showing record levels of mental health problems
Exclusive: Nine out of 10 migrants seen by psychologists showed anxiety or depression symptoms caused by rape, assault or kidnapping, MSF survey find
For Syrian Refugees, a Mental Health Emergency
A psychiatrist recounts a trip to Jordan, spreading teachable techniques in attempts to arm refugees amid a devestating crisis.
A Pit Stop for PTSD Therapy
On the Greek island of Lesbos, psychologists have only a few days to help the waves of arriving refugees before they move on.
Unaccompanied child refugees' suffering on route to Europe laid bare
Interviews by Human Rights Watch with 50 refugees aged nine to 17 in Sweden reveal scale of trauma, as they tell of imprisonment, rape and beatings
14 Million Children Suffering as Result of War in Syria and Iraq, Unicef Says
“Violence and suffering have not only scarred their past, they are shaping their futures,” Anthony Lake, Unicef’s director, said in a statement released on Thursday with a report on the plight of 5.6 million children in Syria and two million more who have fled as refugees. Close to three million children in Iraq and 3.6 million children in neighboring countries bearing the brunt of the influx are affected by the conflict, Unicef estimated.
Europe is failing to help a generation of traumatised children
Eight million child refugees is a mental health time bomb. Ignoring it now would be a terrible mistake