Psychologists’ perspectives on providing psychological care for refugees in Brazil

ABSTRACT

To gain insights into psychologists’ experience of working with refugees in Brazil, semi-structured interviews with 14 psychologists were conducted and analysed using thematic analysis. Results showed that participants experienced operating in a novel, precarious and xenophobic context, which led them to move beyond classical psychological work, engage in practical assistance and become very close to clients. Psychologists reported lack of public structures, insufficient competencies and high levels of fatigue. At the same time, they described gaining new perspectives and benefiting from witnessing their clients’ resilience. In terms of facilitators for the work with refugees, participants pointed to the importance of psychologists being flexible, authentic, of showing a high frustration tolerance and of making use of group-based approaches. Participants suggested that, in order to better refugees’ mental health in Brazil, efforts should focus on adopting a more social perspective in psychology, developing anti-discrimination campaigns, building policies for refugee’ inclusion and scaling up investments in mental healthcare in general. Suggestions for future research are made, as well as for psychologists who work with refugees, such as fostering a more collectivity-focused and contextual understanding of mental health.

KEYWORDS:

• Refugees
• transcultural mental healthcare
• latin america
• experts’ perspectives
• structural competency

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the participants who took part in this study and the anonymous reviewers and editor for their constructive comments on our article. We wish to express appreciation to all the people who helped support this study by pilot testing the interview guideline, assisting the transcriptions and coding of the interviews and by proofreading the manuscript.

Gesa Duden gratefully acknowledges a research fellowship through the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung (Germany).

Lucienne Martins-Borges acknowledges the financial support through the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – CNPq (Brazil).

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Meanwhile, caution is needed in the comparison of these numbers, as asylum application procedures, and definitions of “refugees”, “asylum seekers” and “immigrants” differ considerably between states. For a better picture please also refer to numbers regarding officially recognised refugees and regarding people with pending asylum procedures (e.g. CONARE, 2019; UNHCR, 2020b).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the CNPq; Hans Böckler Stiftung [401163].

Notes on contributors

Gesa Solveig Duden

Gesa Solveig Duden is a doctoral candidate in intercultural and clinical psychology at the University of Osnabrück Germany, in cooperation with the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil. She received her MSc in Intercultural Psychology from the University of Osnabrueck and her BA in Psychology from the University College Dublin, Ireland. She was a visiting PhD researcher at the division of Transcultural Psychiatry of the McGill University, Canada and has received specific training in systemic counselling and therapy. Her research interests lie in the systemic and cultural embeddedness of the human psyche and mental well-being, in intercultural communication, multiculturalism and mental health services and community mental health promotion.

Lucienne Martins-Borges

Lucienne Martins-Borges is a Titular Professor in the School of Social Work and Criminology at Laval University (Québec, Canada) and a professor of the Graduate Program in Psychology of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (Brazil). Member of the research teams Équipe de recherche en partenariat sur la diversité culturelle et l’immigration dans la région de Québec (ÉDIQ) and Núcleo de Estudos sobre Psicologia, Migrações e Culturas (NEMPsiC). She completed a Ph.D. in psychology (Université du Québec - Canada), a master's degree in Literature Studies (Université du Québec – Canada), a master's degree in Psychology (Laval University – Canada) and a bachelor's degree in Psychology (Catholic University of Goiás - Brazil). She is Co-founder of the Service d’Aide Psychologique Spécialisée aux Immigrants et Réfugiés (SAPSIR, Canada). Her research interests include Intercultural clinical psychology, Ethnopsychiatry, migrations, refugee and mental health.