Resilience, Suffering and Creativity

Aida Alayarian is a consultant clinical psychologist, child psychotherapist since 1986, and adult psychoanalytic psychotherapist since 1998. She has a Masters in Medical Anthropology and Intercultural Psychotherapy, with a background in Medicine. She is the founder and currently Clinical Director of the Refugee Therapy Centre.

'This book is a true labour of love. Staff and associates of the Refugee Therapy Centre in London give their testimonies and reflections on issues of theory and practice connected with working with refugees. Their central theme is that of resilience which is a much-neglected perspective in this field. The book is inspiring, instructive and authoritative. An essential reading for all who work with this group of people.'- Prof. Renos K Papadopoulos, Tavistock Clinic and University of Essex'Resilience, Suffering, and Creativity offers a particularly thoughtful overview of what is needed by those who have come finally to rest in some refuge. The specific issues in this kind of work are raised here - the role of words in treating trauma that comes from physical and bodily privation; the indicators by which we can pick those whose resilience can carry them through; the place of social network support (and its loss); the role of the therapeutic institution for people who have been institutionally persecuted; and so on. It is a far-reaching contribution to addressing these various issues and is, by necessity, a vehicle that gives us a feel of the refugee experience through the vignettes. The book itself does a containing job on this most disorientating of all fates. It is a job to help those with less resilience, and it is a job to help those who have to listen therapeutically to the refugee experience.'- Bob Hinshelwood, Psychoanalyst, Professor in the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex

• Foreword -- Introduction -- Trauma, resilience, and creativity -- Resilience: a case illustration -- Memory for trauma -- The therapeutic needs of those fleeing persecution and violence, now and in the future -- Does it matter how much can be put into words? -- Loss of network support piled on trauma: thinking more broadly about the context of refugees -- Hearing the unhearable, speaking the unspeakable: original wounds, trauma, and the asylum seeker -- How I became a psychoanalyst -- My experience of clinical work with refugees and asylum seekers -- Boundary problems and compassion -- Reflections on alternative organizational structures for charitable agencies