“My Hands Tied Behind My Back.” Some Reflections on Working with Traumatized Refugees

This paper describes the psychotherapy of a female, living for 6 years in the United Kingdom (UK), seeking asylum, displaced from her homeland of Eritrea, where she had witnessed the murder of her husband. Understandably, in this new location, she struggled to survive the ongoing reenactments of trauma and the adjustments she needed to make to save herself and her child as she navigated the UK’s home office and social service structures and system. She was faced with overwhelming challenges to secure some semblance of security and stability as well as to learn how to mourn and begin to negotiate the devastating losses she had experienced. The analyst was, at the same time, challenged with how “to bear the unbearable” emotional plight and the very real dehumanizing and traumatic circumstances of her patient’s experiences. The patient had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, as was faced with the “grim realities of persecution, violence, of life and death” and a transgenerational history of trauma. It was the deepening of “patience,” appreciation, and an understanding of the repetition compulsion, dynamics of power, mourning, and the impact of the multiple identities within the therapeutic dyad. In addition, the therapeutic work enabled her to foster her resilience and there was some post trauma growth.