Advancing transculturally informed, humanistic therapeutic practice for refugees and asylum seekers presenting with embodied trauma

IntroductionA record of 122.6 million people have sought refuge and asylum across the globe in 2024, exacerbated by emergencies in Ukraine, Sudan, Afghanistan and by the Israel–Hamas war. This number is set to rise to over 130 million people in refugee situations in 59 countries this year alone. With refugees suffering from higher rates of mental health difficulties than the general population, there is an urgent need to provide an expedient, socially just, transculturally informed pathway into humanistic psychological care services for these individuals. The objectives of this study were to explore how therapeutic practitioners are working effectively with displaced individuals presenting with embodied trauma, their experiences of transcultural approaches to therapeutic work and the impact of working alongside psychopharmacological medications in this commonly overprescribed client group.MethodA qualitative semi-structured interview was operationalised with 12 therapeutic practitioners who have worked with displaced individuals, utilising reflexive thematic analysis of the data.ResultsFindings highlight a critical need for an updated transculturally informed, humanistic, person-centred pathway of care for each displaced individual.DiscussionThis study offers facilitators and challenges to using a humanistic, transculturally updated assessment, formulation, treatment plan, and routine outcome measures for embodied trauma. It also considers the importance of working with a client's cultural context of origin, language, universally understood emotions, cultural strengths, preferences for therapy and use of a psychopharmacological review within a holistic constellation of care

I trade, therefore I am : legal personhood in the European Union

The piecemeal, case by case construction of EU citizenship has created a patchwork of personhoods rather than a unitary status - a patchwork with significant gaps through which people deemed economically inactive are allowed to fall. This paper argues that it is necessary to assess the integrity and effects of a market-centric, economic citizenship. The free movement legal landscape is riven with welfare rights "cliff edges," as changes in circumstance tip claimants from full equal welfare entitlement to none. Examples drawn from the UK include the welfare restrictions placed on Zambrano-reliant families, and the care and pregnancy gaps in Directive 2004/38. Market citizenship and the worker-commodity paradigm have not disappeared, but have been obscured and fortified through the moral language of citizenship and responsibility. The impact upon our ideas of fairness and society is evident in the Union's activation agenda for national welfare regimes. This paper argues that we should recognize the ideological ramifications of accepting the premises of market citizenship, assess its consequences, and ask whether an alternative approach is possible to challenge Member State minimal implementation, to better commit to the protection of each others' nationals and to promote EU level social justice

Body mapping Refugees and asylum seekers’ perspectives of embodied trauma: an innovative method for psychotraumatology research and practice

With the population of displaced individuals reaching over 25 million people worldwide, exacerbated by recent humanitarian emergencies there is an urgent need to rapidly assess manifestations of trauma, with a focus on providing culturally informed methods for those in distress. The novel concept of ‘embodied trauma’ is body mapped and explicated using a sample of 13 displaced individuals in the United Kingdom. This study operationalises a qualitative, semi-structured interview, incorporating the Trauma Screening Questionnaire, exploratory open questions, and body mapping exercises, utilising reflexive thematic analysis of the interview data. Results map how trauma and associated emotions are experienced in the body, generating key themes to elucidate the novel term ‘embodied trauma,’ encompassing its holistic bio-psycho-social-sexual-spiritual-existential presentations. The implications of this study make the case for the innovative use of body mapping in psychotraumatology research and practice, as part of a culturally informed approach

The role of geoarchaeology in the interpretation of fragmented buildings and occupation surfaces: The case of coastal settlements in northeast Scotland

Around the world, poorly preserved buildings and occupation deposits often represent the primary evidence for archaeological structures and settlements. Integrated geoarchaeological methods, such as soil chemistry and micromorphology, can be used to maximise the information obtained from such deposits regarding site preservation and the use of space. However, archaeologists are often reluctant to apply these methods if they suspect that preservation is poor or stratigraphy is not visible in the field. To assess the role that geoarchaeology can play in the interpretation of fragmented and poorly preserved structures, this paper presents the results of two case studies in which multiple geoarchaeological methods (microrefuse analysis, pH, electrical conductivity, magnetic susceptibility, loss‐on‐ignition, portable XRF and micromorphology) were applied to poorly preserved occupation deposits and fragmented buildings in early medieval coastal settlements in northeast Scotland. Micromorphology proved to be fundamental for recognising and understanding the composition of occupation deposits that had formerly been floor surfaces. It also aided interpretations for the use of space and maintenance practices and improved an understanding of the post‐depositional processes that had affected stratigraphic visibility at the macroscale. When subjected to principal component analysis, the geochemical, magnetic and microrefuse data were able to provide new details about activity areas, and successfully identified and filtered out the effects of post‐medieval contamination. Most significantly, the integrated approach demonstrates that fragmented buildings and poorly preserved occupation surfaces can retain surviving characteristics of the use of space, even if the floor surfaces were not preserved well enough to be clearly defined in the field or in thin section

The role of geoarchaeology in the interpretation of fragmented buildings and occupation surfaces : The case of coastal settlements in northeast Scotland

Our gratitude is extended to all those who participated in the excavations, in particular the volunteers who aided in the collection of bulk samples for geoarchaeological analysis. The authors also extend thanks to George MacLeod at the University of Stirling for producing the thin sections and providing technical support during pXRF analysis, and to four anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. The 2016 excavation season at Burghead was funded by the University of Aberdeen Development Trust. The 2016 excavation season at Dunnicaer was funded by the University of Aberdeen Development Trust, Aberdeenshire Council Archaeology Service and the Strathmartine Trust. The geoarchaeological research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council as part of the IAPETUS Doctorial Training Programme (grant number NE/L002590/1), and Karen Milek's contribution was supported by the Leverhulme Trust (grant RPG-2019-258).Peer reviewe

The Environmental Context and Function of Burnt-Mounds : New Studies of Irish Fulachtaí Fiadh

The authors acknowledge funding from The Leverhulme Trust (F/00144/AI) and assistance from a large number of individuals including; Margaret Gowen (access to sites and assistance throughout),A. Ames, H, Essex (pollen processing), S. Rouillard & R. Smith (illustrations), C. McDermott, S. Bergerbrandt, all the staff of Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd, TVAS Ireland and CRDS. Excavation works and some post-excavation analysis was paid for my Bord Gáis and the National Roads Authority (now Transport Infrastructure Ireland). Thanks also to David Smith for access to the Maureen Girling collection and assistance with identifications.Peer reviewedPostprintPostprin

Finding Maternal Siblings in Birth Registration Data to form a Pregnancy Spine – Data Linkage & Graph Based Methods for Unknown Cluster Sizes

We have developed an innovative methodology to link maternal siblings within 2000-2005 England and Wales Birth Registration data, to form a Pregnancy Spine, a unification of all births to each unique mother. Key challenges were Blocking & Cluster resolution. To optimise geographic blocking, Internal Migration data was incorporated to map likely geographic movement of mothers between births. Following probabilistic linkage, sibling clusters were modelled as a graph and their structure optimised using community detection methods. Childhood statistics data relating to child DOB were incorporated to evaluate accuracy and remove false links. Our development has resulted in a new blocking and cluster resolution method. We developed new ways to assess sibling group accuracy, beyond traditional classifier metrics, and infer error rates. We applied our method to Registration Data used in earlier studies for QA of our methods. Using this, and other maternal sibling composition statistics, we present results showing that a high degree of accuracy was obtained for standard and new evaluation metrics. These methods will improve other linkage projects linking unknown clusters sizes/multiple datasets, or longer time period longitudinal linkage. To this Spine, researchers can append and link other data sources to answer questions about maternal and child health outcomes

Biomechanical locomotion adaptations on uneven surfaces can be simulated with a randomly deforming shoe midsole

Background: A shoe with unsystematic perturbations, similar to natural uneven terrain, may offer an enhanced training stimulus over current unstable footwear technologies. This study compared the instability of a shoe with unpredictably random midsole deformations, an irregular surface and a control shoe-surface whilst treadmill walking and running. Methods: Three-dimensional kinematics and electromyography were recorded of the lower limb in 18 active males. Gait cycle characteristics, joint angles at initial ground contact and maximum values during stance, and muscle activations prior to initial contact and during loading were analysed. Perceived stability, injury-risk and energy consumption were evaluated. Instability was assessed by movement variability, muscular activations and subjective ratings. Results: Posture alterations at initial contact revealed active adaptations in the irregular midsole and irregular surface to maintain stability whilst walking and running. Variability of the gait cycle and lower limb kinematics increased on the irregular surface compared to the control across locomotion types. Similarly increased variability (coefficient of variation) were found in the irregular midsole compared to the control for frontal ankle motion (walk: 31.1 and 14.9, run: 28.1 and 11.6), maximum sagittal knee angle (walk: 7.6 and 4.8, run: 2.8 and 2.4), and global gait characteristics during walking only (2.1 ± 0.5 and 1.6 ± 0.3). Tibialis anterior pre-activation reduced and gastrocnemius activation increased in the irregular midsole compared to the control across locomotion types. During running, peroneus longus activation increased in the irregular midsole and irregular surface. Conclusions: Results indicate random shoe midsole deformations enhanced instability relative to the control and simulated certain locomotion adaptations of the irregular surface, although less pronounced. Thus, a shoe with unpredictable instability revealed potential as a novel instability-training device