From trauma to recovery: Group work with refugees and displaced youth.

With more displaced people now than at any other time in recorded human history, significant demand exists in refugee communities for culturally sensitive services with providers able to utilize individual and community strengths. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and art therapy offer evidence-based tools for trauma recovery. This chapter describes an integrative EMDR and art therapy approach for refugee adolescents who experienced immigration and other traumas as part of community-based care in the United States and Ethiopia. An interdisciplinary approach in both countries offered group services using a culturally humble perspective. The community-based and trauma-focused interventions emphasized developmentally and culturally appropriate art materials and methods with a strength-based and collective approach. Results indicated that using EMDR could be an essential component to a multidisciplinary approach to reducing PTSD, depression, and anxiety symptoms in adolescent refugees living in the United States and East Africa.

Book Section

English

Jocelyn Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald, J. (2022). From trauma to recovery: Group work with refugees and displaced youth. In E. Davis, J. Fitzgerald, S. Jacobs, & J. Marchand, J. (2022). EMDR and creative arts therapies (pp.). New York, NY: Routledge