Seeking Asylum and Mental Health

Chris Maloney is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and General Practitioner. He worked as a GP with people seeking asylum for many years, and has been an expert witness in asylum cases since 2003. He is a co-author of Intelligent Kindness: Rehabilitating the Welfare State (2nd edition), together with John Ballatt and Penny Campling (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Julia Nelki is a child psychiatrist and family therapist. She has set up services for families and unaccompanied children seeking asylum in Liverpool, is a trustee of a Refugee charity, and wrote medicolegal reports in asylum cases for twenty-five years. She now works with the Refugee Resilience Collective offering support to volunteers working with refugees. She has authored many peer reviewed publications and Villa Russo: A Jewish Story (Offizin Verlag 2022). Alison Summers is a general psychiatrist and psychodynamic psychotherapist. She has worked with people seeking asylum since 2008 as a psychotherapist and more recently a medico-legal report writer. She is a board member and medical report writer for Torture ID, and works with people seeking asylum that live in her local community.

• 1. Why do people seek asylum? The global context; Rukyya Hassan; 2. Seeking Asylum in the UK; Jude Boyles, Robin Ewart-Biggs, Jonathan Kazembe, Jo Miller and Karin Oliver; 3. Seeking asylum and mental health Norma McKinnon and Chris Maloney; 4. Access to mental health care Alison Summers, Norma McKinnon and Jo Miller; 5. Assessing mental health needs Julia Nelki and Piyal Sen; 6. Interpreting assessment findings Chris Maloney and Cornelius Katona; 7. Formulation and diagnosis Alison Summers; 8. Common diagnoses; Piyal Sen, Alison Summers and Chris Maloney; 9. Intervention – the essentials Alison Summers and Chris Maloney; 10. Specific interventions Piyal Sen, Grace Crowley, Chris Maloney and Alison Summers; 11. Children families and young people Veronika Dobler and Julia Nelki; 12. Records and reports Janine Bonnet and Beate Dasarathy; 13. Improving mental health services Alison Summers, Philomène Uwamaliya, Jude Boyles and Helen Pears; 14. Therapeutic complexity Renos Papadopoulos; 15. Working with people seeking asylum Chris Maloney, Julia Nelki and Alison Summer.

'A timely book, full of wisdom and practical advice for all those working with those who are seeking asylum. With contributions from those with lived experience and illuminating vignettes, the book takes the reader through the events and challenges faced …The book is a compendium of all you need to know to understand, assess, help, care for and work alongside and learn from displaced people. A humbling read, horrifying in places but always full of hope. Issues are addressed from the standpoint of the individual, and handled with sensitivity, dignity and respect. And a helpful reminder of the strength of the human spirit, the similarities amongst those who seek asylum but their very real differences. Most will not develop mental illness and normal responses to extreme challenges must not be pathologised. I thoroughly recommend to all who work in healthcare, and essential for those working closely with those who seek asylum.' Dr Adrian James, President, Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK