Social Work Commons^™

Central Americans At A Crossroads: Asylum Seekers’ Testimonios Of Mental Health After Detention And Family Separation, Corie E. Schwabenland Garcia

Master's Theses

Though Central American asylum seekers are presently hypervisible in the U.S. consciousness, this population continues to be inadequately understood or cared for. Discussion of this population often presents them as a helpless and damaged population, in need of saving, fixing, or shelter -- beyond their trauma, they cease to exist. This qualitative study utilizes first-person testimonio methodology to understand the psychological experiences of Central American migrants seeking asylum in the United States, the stressors they face, and the mental health support that can and should be provided to them. Their stories speak to a space of sociopolitical precarity in the …

A Study Of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Among Resettled And Refugee Cambodians, Jolene Malinee Aitken

Master's Theses

Problem

With the onset of the Cambodian holocaust, as well as over 40 years of continual war in Cambodia, the Khmer people have been subjected to an existence of prolonged exposure to disaster, contributing to the alarming prevalence of the mental health disorder of post-traumatic stress among Cambodians today. Post-traumatic stress disorder is the debilitating syndrome described as the development of characteristic symptoms following a psychologically traumatic event that is generally outside the range of usual human experience (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd edition revised, [DSM-III-R], 1987). The purpose of this study was to examine the existence …