Making meaning through storytelling: Working with Asylum Seekers in South Australia

Working with people seeking asylum in Australia is especially challenging because it is difficult for them to achieve a sense of safety and stability, vital for counselling. Immigration demands often neglect to take into... [ view full abstract ]

Working with people seeking asylum in Australia is especially challenging because it is difficult for them to achieve a sense of safety and stability, vital for counselling. Immigration demands often neglect to take into account traumatic stress symptoms (i.e. dissociation), exacerbating mental health and well-being. For the many asylum seekers whose immigration status remains unresolved, it is important to help them maintain hope and cope with uncertainty while navigating the immigration system. This presentation describes and evaluates how principles of Narrative Therapy were utilized in work with asylum seekers in South Australia. Storytelling is an inherently human activity and narrative practice assists people to tell stories of their lives and make meaning of life events through the stories they tell. Eventually people try to live the stories they tell in accordance with the meanings they construct. The target group of the intervention were adult men and women from varying socio-cultural backgrounds, seeking asylum in Australia. Narrative principles utilized were: re-authoring and re-membering, externalizing, and outsider-witnessing. Narrative methods included: poetry, the written word, and oral narratives. Improvement in symptoms was measured using the National Minimum Data Set (NMDS), as well as, through therapist and client observations. In addition, the narrative approach was observed to facilitate clients’ journey through the immigration process; and ironically, immigration demands “to present ones trauma story” motivated clients to engage in the narrative process. Additional benefits of the narrative approach included familiarity with storytelling in many cultures, flexibility of approach, enhanced meaning for clients and reinforcement of the client-therapist relationship. This approach also enabled the therapist to discover clients’ unique strengths and coping strategies; and was especially useful in maintaining hope in an otherwise seemingly hopeless socio-political environment.