Suicide and self harm prevention with asylum seekers: Clinical challenges and human rights dilemmas.

Suicide and self harm prevention with asylum seekers: Clinical challenges and human rights dilemmas.

2012-12-01 00:00:00 28m

The argument is advanced that in such clinical work, the intersection of mental health with human rights violations and the social responsibility of helping professionals, is inescapable. Helping professionals undertaking such work for people in such desperate situations and who seek to critically engage with their clients for emancipatory purposes, will often need to operate as advocates as well as clinicians at individual and wider levels.

 

This presentation considers suicide and self harm among asylum seekers from the vantage points of clinical practice and of public policy. The mounting evidence of the psychological harms occasioned by global restrictive and punitive immigration policies and practicies, and their relationship to suicidality, is noted. The limited Australian and international evidence regarding suicide and self harm among asylum seekers is reviewed; common themes and critical points are surveyed (using the recommendations of coroners, among others); and the role of government advisory bodies examined.

General and specific clinical and ethical principles and dilemmas in working with asylum seekers who present with self harm and suicidality are examined and discussed, using case examples, and also considering available evidence for effective therapeutic approaches with suicidal people that may be applied to the situation of asylum seekers. The specific challenges for those under restrictive immigration conditions are noted.

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STARTTS 2012

The neuroscience of psychotherapy : Healing the Social Brain

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The neuroscience of psychotherapy : Simple and Complex PTSD

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Post-traumatic Growth: Is there evidence for changing our practice?

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