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Chair: Paula L. Ellman
Presenter: Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber
Discussants: Patricia Alkolombre, Jhuma Basak, Cecile Bassen, Cristina Saottini
Paula Ellman (USA) introduced the panel theme - the way in which regression to the infantile appears in refugees and their helpers.
Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber (Germany) has been highly active in working with refugees in Germany since the world refugee crisis became acute in 2015. She briefly gave an overview of the interdisciplinary approach developed in a model refugee community/village established for particularly vulnerable groups, including women and children. The pilot project was called “STEP-BY-STEP”. “FIRST STEPS” were offered in the reception centre, the “Michaelis-Village” (see, for example, Leuzinger-Bohleber et al. 2016).
The project provided the refugees with a reliable daily structure and interaction with empathic helpers. These alternative relational experiences sought to strengthen resilience and avoid further traumatization in the reception centre. Meaningful activities were encouraged to restore a sense of agency and human dignity. The centre provided short-term psychotherapeutic work, including crisis intervention, art therapy for children, and therapeutic groups. These “FIRST STEPS” aimed to support the refugees psychoanalytically, help them to move out into the wider community and get on with their lives. This would make possible more intensive work. Those refugees who later felt that they required or wanted more in-depth therapy were able to return for psychoanalytic sessions (“SECOND STEPS”).
Marianne then presented two short case studies to illustrate that it is possible to do in-depth psychoanalytic work with refugees, but often only in the sense of a “SECOND STEP”. The support provided by the “FIRST STEPS” was essential, as was a latency period when the refugees established themselves in the external reality of their new home in Germany. After such a latency period, it is often the reactivation of unresolv