A cross- sectional study of refugees in Norway and Serbia: Levels of mental distress and social-demographic risk factors.

This cross-sectional study has assessed and compared symptoms of anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among one refugee group during flight (in Serbia) and another refugee group after flight (in Norway). Results indicate high levels of mental distress in both samples of refugees (Serbia: = 100, Norway: = 78). Participants in Serbia reported higher levels of symptoms than the participants in Norway.

Psychoanalysis and the third position: social upheavals and atrocity.

Many situations are now characterized by a breakdown of order and structure, leaving people at the peril of unorganized forces (war machines, human traffickers, etc.) resulting in the dehumanizing of ordinary people on a mass scale, especially in the refugee field. The paper focuses on how alienating discourses on "trauma" and society's neglect of traumatized people increase suffering and have grave consequences for coming generations.

Predictors of the 10 year course of mental health and quality of life for trauma-affected refugees after psychological treatment.

Trauma-affected refugee patients benefit from psychological treatment to different degrees. Only a handful of studies has investigated potential predictors of treatment outcome that could throw light on the great variability in outcomes reported for this group. Such knowledge may be vital to better tailor prevention and treatment efforts to the needs of different individuals and subgroups among these patients.

"Imagine, 7 Years Without a Future": A Qualitative Study of Rejected Asylum Seekers' Life Conditions in Norway.

Asylum seekers are in an extraordinary situation as their future life depend on decisions made by authorities in a bewildering, bureaucratic system, with excessive waiting and unpredictable timeframes. Those that are not granted asylum, and not able to return to their country of origin, can neither spatially nor temporally visualize if, when or how a potential change is going to occur. This paper is part of a larger study based on narrative interviews with asylum seekers and refugees in asylum centers in Norway, exploring their experiences before, during, and after flight.

"I Have No Capacities That Can Help Me": Young Asylum Seekers in Norway and Serbia - Flight as Disturbance of Developmental Processes.

Most studies on refugee populations are organized around trauma-related issues and focus on explaining pathological factors. Few studies are anchored in general developmental psychology with the aim of exploring normal age-specific developmental tasks and how the special circumstances associated with forced migration can influence how developmental tasks are negotiated. This study is part of a larger mixed method study seeking to identify resilience-promoting and resilience-inhibiting factors, on individual and contextual levels, among asylum seekers and refugees on the move (passing through Serbia) and settled in reception centers in Norway.

The Past, the Present, and the Future: A Qualitative Study Exploring How Refugees' Experience of Time Influences Their Mental Health and Well-Being.

The experience of time has a decisive influence on refugees' well-being and suffering in all phases of their flight experiences. Basic safety is connected both developmentally and in present life with a feeling of continuity and predictability. Refugees often experience disruption of this basic sense of time in their home country due to war, persecution, and often severe traumatization, during flight, due to unpredictable and dangerous circumstances in the hands of smugglers, and after flight, due to unpredictable circumstances in asylum centers, e.

Short-term risk assessments in an acute psychiatric inpatient setting: A re-examination of the Brøset Violence Checklist using repeated measurements - Differentiating violence characteristics and gender.

This study investigated the association between short-term risk assessment measured by the Brøset Violence Checklist (BVC) and imminent violence using repeated measurements and differentiating violence characteristics and gender. All patients admitted to an acute psychiatric ward during one year (N = 528) were included. Logistic regression and generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) analyses were conducted.

The 10-year course of mental health, quality of life, and exile life functioning in traumatized refugees from treatment start.

Refugee patients with severe traumatic experiences may need mental health treatment, but treatment results vary, and there is scarcity of studies demonstrating refugees' long-term health and well-being after treatment. In a 10-year naturalistic and longitudinal study, 54 multi-origin traumatized adult refugee patients, with a background of war and persecution, and with a mean stay in Norway of 10.5 years, were recruited as they entered psychological treatment in mental health specialist services.

Negotiating identity at the intersection of family legacy and present time life conditions: A qualitative exploration of central issues connected to identity and belonging in the lives of children of refugees.

Introduction: Most studies on refugee populations are organized around trauma-related issues and focus on explanations of pathological factors. Few studies are anchored in general developmental psychology with the aim of exploring normal age-specific developmental tasks and how the special circumstances associated with forced migration can influence that development.

Methods: Using an ecological and transactional understanding of developmental trajectories, this qualitative study explored issues connected to identity formation processes in an exile context based on interviews with 6 male and 10 female children of refugees (18-26 years) who have grown up in Norway.

Screening for risk of violence using service users' self-perceptions: A prospective study from an acute mental health unit.

Service users' self-perception of risk has rarely been emphasized in violence risk assessments. A recent review pointed to the importance of a multidisciplinary approach, because different perspectives may provide a deeper and improved understanding of risk assessment. The aim of this study was to investigate service users' perceptions of their own risk of committing violence, using a self-report risk scale, to determine the feasibility and efficacy of this potential violence risk marker during acute mental health hospitalization.

Our Relations to Refugees: Between Compassion and Dehumanization.

After the so-called refugee crisis of 2015-2016 European reactions to foreigners had come to the fore and we are seeing xenophobic political and populist movements become increasingly mainstream. The massive rejection of refugees/asylum seekers taking place has made their conditions before, during and after flight, increasingly difficult and dangerous. This paper relates current xenophobia to historical attitudinal trends in Europe regarding Islam, and claims that a much more basic conflict is at work: the one between anti-modernism/traditionalism and modernism/globalization.

Relationship of Pretreatment Rorschach Factors to Symptoms, Quality of Life, and Real-Life Functioning in a 3-Year Follow-Up of Traumatized Refugee Patients.

Response to mental health treatment varies highly among refugee patients. Research has not established which factors relate to differences in outcome. This study is a follow-up of Opaas and Hartmann's (2013) Rorschach Inkblot Method (RIM; Exner, 2003) pretreatment study of traumatized refugees, where 2 RIM principal components, Trauma Response and Reality Testing, were found descriptive of participants' trauma-related personality functioning.

Unconscious phantasy and its conceptualizations: An attempt at conceptual integration.

That there is a lack of consensus as to how to decide between competing, at times even contradictory theories, and about how to integrate divergent concepts and theories is well known. In view of this situation, the IPA Committee on Conceptual Integration (2009-2013) developed a method for comparing the different versions of any given concept, together with the underlying theories and fundamental assumptions on which they are based. Only when situated in the same frame of reference do similarities and differences begin to appear in a methodically comprehensible and reproducible form.

Relationships of Childhood Adverse Experiences With Mental Health and Quality of Life at Treatment Start for Adult Refugees Traumatized by Pre-Flight Experiences of War and Human Rights Violations.

Adverse and potentially traumatic experiences (PTEs) in childhood were examined among 54 adult refugee patients with pre-flight PTEs of war and human rights violations (HRVs) and related to mental health and quality of life at treatment start. Extent of childhood PTEs was more strongly related to mental health and quality of life than the extent of war and HRV experiences. Childhood PTEs were significantly related to arousal and avoidance symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and to quality of life, whereas pre-flight war and HRV experiences were significantly related to reexperiencing symptoms of PTSD only.

Towards a better use of psychoanalytic concepts: a model illustrated using the concept of enactment.

It is well known that there is a lack of consensus about how to decide between competing and sometimes mutually contradictory theories, and how to integrate divergent concepts and theories. In view of this situation the IPA Project Committee on Conceptual Integration developed a method that allows comparison between different versions of concepts, their underlying theories and basic assumptions. Only when placed in a frame of reference can similarities and differences be seen in a methodically comprehensible and reproducible way.

[Physicians' attitude towards treating refugee patients].

Background: The refugee patient's complex problems represent a challenge for primary and secondary health care. Language problems and cultural differences may cause difficulties in understanding symptoms and ailments. We have assessed how physicians relate to and perceive their competence for treating this patient group.

The influence of extreme traumatization on body, mind and social relations.

Extreme traumatization affects the individual's relation to others in several social and psychological ways. The post-traumatic experiences are characterized by helplessness, insecurity, anxiety, loss of basic trust, and fragmentation of perspectives on one's own life. Special considerations should be given to the destruction of the ability to regulate negative emotions (extreme fear, distress, anguish, anger, rage, shame) in relation to others and activate internal good and empathic object relations.

Inpatient psychotherapy compared with usual care for patients who have schizophrenic psychoses.

The study examined whether some patients with schizophrenia benefit from intensive inpatient psychodynamic psychotherapy while others are harmed by it. Multiple regression analyses were conducted with combined data from a follow-up study of 25 inpatients who were treated in a psychotherapeutic program and a follow-up study of 71 patients who received standard hospital treatment. The mean duration of the follow-up period was seven years.