Mental Health care
Responding to special needs
Many survivors of torture and conflict-related trauma experience profound and long-lasting effects, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. Appropriate mental health care and counseling can help address these conditions and aid the process of recovery.
ASTT’s mental health services include psychological assessment, individual and family psychotherapy, and group treatment. When counseling or psychological assessment is a part of a client’s personal wellness plan, he or she is referred to an in-house psychologist or clinical social worker. Therapeutic sessions with the ASTT clinician may continue over the course of several weeks or months, based on the individual client’s situation and needs.
The goal of these therapeutic sessions is for the client to experience progressively fewer and fewer trauma-related symptoms. Also important are related goals, as identified in the client’s personal wellness plan; these may include addressing medical needs, increasing hours of sleep, or taking steps to connect with the community.
In appropriate cases, the ASTT clinician will provide a notarized psychological report for the client’s asylum interview and/or prepare a full psychological evaluation for use as expert asylum court testimony. ASTT psychologists also help clients deal with the often intense emotional stress that accompanies the process of seeking asylum.
Seeing survivors as parts of the whole
Essential to ASTT’s approach is the understanding that torture survivors are, like all of us, links within relational networks that include family members, friends, and others in their community. The process of healing touches all of these lives. Care for the individual helps restore a sense of self that, in turn, enables the survivor to better fulfill his or her role as parent, sibling, and member of the wider society.
Being there when we’re needed
When a client is granted asylum, ASTT continues to provide psychological care if it is requested and needed. We also recognize that individuals who have undergone trauma can sometimes experience resurgent symptoms at later points in their lives. Clients who have elected to finish their program of care at ASTT are encouraged to contact us at any time if they feel it would be helpful for them to talk with their clinician and/or case manager.
Documenting the effects of torture
Many individuals fleeing persecution in their home countries have to leave quickly and clandestinely. Often, they are unable to take with them documents, medical records, letters, photographs, and other materials that might have helped support their request for asylum in the United States.
In these cases, a statement by a psychologist or physician can be especially important in determining the credibility of a survivor’s case. Psychological evaluation by an ASTT clinician, using established tools and measures, can help furnish documentation of the consequences of torture in support of a survivor’s petition for asylum.