Seeking Asylum and Mental Health: A Practical Guide for Professionals

People seeking asylum face unique challenges and frequently experience mental health problems. Effective support requires an understanding of their mental health needs in the broader context of their lives, cultures and extreme experiences. This book provides practical guidance for professionals and services working with people seeking asylum in mental health, social care, legal, government. managerial and commissioning roles. With authors from a wide range of professional backgrounds, the book is enriched by accounts from people with first hand experience of the asylum system itself. It considers the challenges and dilemmas faced by all involved, including clients, clinicians and service planners, with a wealth of practical information about how to assess and understand strengths and needs, avoid inappropriate conclusions and discrimination, consider treatment options, and write records and reports. The authors emphasise that effective support depends on reflection, humanity and compassion. The book is a must-have resource for professionals working with those who have to seek asylum.

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.