Sabbatical Lucia De Haene: Transcultural trauma care for refugees –Integrating pilot psychotherapeutic practices within a systemic & collaborative treatment mode

I would like to orient this sabbatical period on the elaboration of a manual (in English) in transcultural, systemic and collaborative trauma care for refugees, in which research findings and clinical experience from ongoing intervention projects and psychotherapeutic practice are integrated into a vision description and guidance for care providers in transcultural psychosocial assistance. In this I aim to develop a therapeutic vision and phased, multimodal treatment model for transcultural trauma care for the target group of refugees, in which research findings from intervention studies and case histories (including case analyses) are articulated in an integrative way and result in a useful clinical guideline. At the level of vision development, the manual aims at an innovative integration of therapeutic perspectives from transcultural psychiatry, systemic psychotherapy and psychotrauma therapy, with (i) a relational trauma perspective; (ii) a collaborative approach to trauma therapeutic phases (i.e., stabilization, integration & socialization); (iii) a dynamic interpretation of disclosure and trauma narrative; and (iv) a focus on structural competence as central dimensions. This integrative therapeutic framework is then further operationalized at the level of treatment methodology, in setting out core lines for a phased treatment model for trauma care for refugees, based on bringing together clinical case histories and (quantitative and qualitative) research findings from intervention studies (ie, connecting of evidence-based practice & practice-based evidence). The following innovative treatment components are integrated into these core lines: (i) cultural consultation in diagnostic imaging, including partnerships with religious/cultural minority groups; (ii) tiered intervention, using primary care contexts of school and community; (iii) transnational systems therapeutic practice; (iv) collaborative care networks in witnessing practices; (v) systems therapeutic methodologies in works on interaction between post-traumatic suffering and cultural identity construction; (iv) institutional partnerships and traumatic reenactment. I intend to develop this elaboration of a guideline for transcultural trauma care for refugees in close collaboration with colleagues at the Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry (McGill University, Canada). The division is a leading research unit in the field of transcultural psychiatry and psychosocial refugee research in which innovative treatment practices are developed and evaluated; Within the division I work closely with Prof. dr. Cécile Rousseau (e.g., book publication ‘Working with refugee families: Trauma and exile in family relationships’ –De Haene & Rousseau, 2020; Cambridge). During a study stay (summer months 2022), the exchange with the team at the division can support the development of the integrated treatment model, supplemented by providing a shared offer within the international Summer Program in Social & Cultural Psychiatry (and the related Advanced Institute).