Constructions of emotional impact, risk and meaning among practitioners working with asylum seekers and refugees

Abstract

AbstractAimThis study examines the emotional impact that clinical work with asylum seekers and refugees has on practitioners who work with them. This examination takes place by unpacking on the one hand, notions of risk and trauma whilst on the other hand, notions of meaning among practitioners.MethodThe study analyses the discourses deriving from eight semi‐structured interviews that were conducted with specialist practitioners who have worked with asylum seekers and refugees in a psychotherapeutic context.FindingsThe findings of the study reveal that clients’ traumatic experiences permeated practitioners’ discourses and had a profound impact on practitioners’ way of perceiving the world and themselves. Despite this impact, the findings also show that clinical work with asylum seekers and refugees is constructed as meaningful and rewarding for practitioners. Practitioners appear to locate their clinical work in a wider context of social engagement that envelops a notion of social responsibility towards vulnerable individuals and which allows them to feel that they can make a positive contribution to their community. Importantly, practitioners’ social engagement with clinical work appears to counterbalance the traumatising impact that work with asylum seekers and refugees has upon them and to produce a meaningful experience.