Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
ARTICLESReview of Child and Adolescent Refugee Mental Health
Section snippets
DEVELOPMENT, CULTURE, AND THEORY
A culturally relevant, developmental theoretical foundation is essential to understanding the experience of refugee youths in the context of flight and resettlement. Developmental theory (Erikson, 1950) has been applied to understanding vulnerability among refugee children (Eisenbruch, 1988), whose wartime experiences of mistrust, self-doubt, and inferiority exacerbate the psychosocial crises that occur during normal development. Psychological development mediates the impact of war and
PHASES OF REFUGEE EXPERIENCE
Among refugees, four broad responses to the stressful experiences have been described: anticipation, devastating events, survival, and adjustment (Fazel and Stein, 2002; Gonsalves, 1992; Papadopoulos, 2001). These reactions fit within the three phases of the refugee experience described below.
Preflight Stress
In Mozambique, one study found that 77% of over 500 children surveyed had witnessed murders or mass killings (Boothby, 1994; Boothby et al., 1991). Elsewhere, among a sample of 40 adolescent Cambodian refugees who had survived 4 years in a Pol Pot “work camp,” 98% endured forced labor, 90% lived in age-segregated camps, and 83% lacked sufficient food for long periods of time (Kinzie et al., 1986).
Combat Experience
Combat is common among refugee children before or during flight. An estimated 300,000 children
Preflight: Coping With War And Political Violence
Ideological commitment has preliminary empirical support as a protective factor among youths in a war zone. A study of Israeli Jewish young adolescents exposed to political violence investigated ideological commitment operationalized by attitudes toward war, peace, patriotism, and the political enemy (Punamaki, 1996). Stronger ideological commitment was associated with less anxiety, insecurity, depression, and failure among children faced with low levels of war exposure. At higher levels of war
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Supported by SAMHSA grant U79 SM54305 (Dr. Saxe).