by Richard Mollica, MD. Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 351;1. July 1, 2004. www.nejm.org
Excerpt
“[T]he effective care of torture survivors must begin with awareness. Identifying a patient who has been tortured is not like finding a needle in a haystack. Many characteristics of the patient’s background provide clues that torture may have occurred. It is estimated, for example, that 60 percent of persons who seek asylum in the United States have been tortured, as have many refugees and migrant workers. A history of torture is common in various groups that have resettled here during recent decades — for example, Cambodians and Vietnamese “boat people” and former Vietnamese prisoners of war who arrived in the 1980s, Central Americans who immigrated in the 1980s and 1990s, and recent arrivals from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Many newcomers enter the United States not only to find economic opportunity, but also to escape violence at home.”
Additional Resources
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resourceAssociations between trauma exposure and symptoms of depression and anxiety among first, second, and later-generation immigrant college students
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resourceThe role of maternal postmigration living difficulties in intergenerational trauma transmission among asylum-seeker mother–child dyads
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resourceA Scoping Review of Family-Based Interventions for Immigrant/Refugee Children: Exploring Intergenerational Trauma
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resourceUnpacking the Wounds of Cultural Displacement: Trauma, Healing, and Reconciliation in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake