Chapter 6: Psychological Services

Healing the Hurt: A Guide for Developing Services for Torture Survivors was developed by The National Capacity Building Project at The Center for Victims of Torture for practitioners who may or may not have worked previously with torture survivors. It is a multidisciplinary guide that addresses some basic considerations when working with this population. This handbook is a primer, and it should not take the place of more in-depth training in torture treatment. We hope you find this resource helpful in your work with torture survivors. Various chapters are referred to under Providers Resources at HealTorture.org. Access to all handbook chapters is available by downloading the PDF files.

You can view and download the full book here or scroll down to view and download Chapter Six.

Chapter Six

This chapter focuses on identifying basic principles and areas of learning needed to begin providing mental health care to torture survivors living in the United States. The chapter is written for mental health providers who are relatively new to working with torture survivors. Providers may be called upon to offer any of a variety of psychological services to individuals, families, groups, or communities affected by torture, including crisis intervention, counseling, assessment, consultation, facilitation, supervision, and short- and long-term therapy.

This chapter is not intended as a “how to” rewards of working with survivors manual. Rather, it serves as a point of departure to help providers determine which types of knowledge or training they need to give qualified care. In addition, the authors offer a number of references of resources for learning.