Trauma and Dissociation in Refugee Patients

Abstract

Exposure to severe trauma, such as torture and related forms of violence, frequently impacts on the whole personality of the victim. Much work has been done to describe various psychiatric symptoms and syndromes, but only recently has attention been drawn to the widespread occurrence of dissociative phenomena in traumatized persons. In clinical practice, dissociation, as manifested in memory loss, depersonalization, identity diffusion, and resulting fears of insanity, often is seen as an important coping and defense mechanism in the afflicted person. In the trauma literature dissociative processes and ensuing disruption of the self have been abundantly described in cases of child abuse, whereas there is relatively less reference to other groups of traumatized patients. This article focuses on the centrality of dissociative mechanisms, by which traumatic material is “split-off” yet persists in seriously disruptive nightmares and flashbacks in two cases of traumatized refugee patients

Key Words:

• Dissociation
• Refugees
• Trauma