The transmission of trauma in refugee families: associations between intra-family trauma communication style, children’s attachment security and psychosocial adjustment

This study explores the transmission of trauma in 30 Middle Eastern refugee families in Denmark, where one or both parents were referred for treatment of PTSD symptoms and had non-traumatized children aged 4–9 years. The aim of the study was to explore potential risk and protective factors by examining the association between intra-family communication style regarding the parents’ traumatic experiences from the past, children’s psychosocial adjustment and attachment security. A negative impact of parental trauma on children might be indicated, as children’s Total Difficulties Scores on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) were significantly higher than the Danish norms. A negative association between children’s attachment security as measured by the Attachment and Traumatization Story Task and higher scores on the SDQ Total Difficulties Scale approached significance, suggesting that the transmission of trauma may be associated with disruptions in children’s attachment representations. Furthermore a significant association between parental trauma communication and children’s attachment style was found

Adult attachment in the context of refugee traumatisation: The impact of organized violence and forced separation on parental states of mind regarding attachment

Starting from an outline of the refugee experience as a process of cumulative traumatisation, we review research literature on mental health outcomes in refugees. Next, an integration of findings on relational processes in refugee families documents the role of the family unit as a key interactive context patterning the impact of sequential traumatisation. Relating these trauma- and migration-specific family processes to their central dimension of provision or disruption of emotional availability in a context of chronic adversity, we aim to explore the development of unresolved and insecure parental states of mind regarding attachment during forced migration. Starting the research report, a method discussion on the administration of 11 Adult Attachment Interviews with adult refugees as part of an explorative multiple case study integrates deontological and technical reflections on the use of the Adult Attachment Interview in a context of ongoing traumatisation. The paper then presents findings on adult attachment in refugees and highlights representational processes involved in the potential disruption of caregiver availability during refugee traumatisation

Holding harm:narrative methods in mental health research on refugee trauma

In this article, we question narrative inquiry's predominant ethics of benefit when engaging in narrative research on trauma and social suffering. Through a particular focus on the use of a narrative methodology in a refugee health study, we explore the potential risk and protective function of narrative trauma research with vulnerable respondents. A review of ethical questions emerging during the course of a multiple-case study with refugee families documents how narrative methods' characteristics clearly revisit the impact of traumatization on autonomy, narrativity, and relationship building in participants and, thus, evoke the replay of traumatic experience within the research relationship itself. Blurring a straightforward ethics of benefit, this reactivation of trauma accounts for the research relationship's balancing movement between reiterating and transforming traumatic distress, and urges for the need to contain coexisting aspects of both harm and benefit in developing narrative research with traumatized participants