Friends as Family: Using Composite Psychotherapy Case Material to Explore the Importance of Friendships for Unaccompanied Adolescent Refugees Coping with the Challenges of Resettlement in Ireland

Abstract

Abstract Given the absence of family support and the depth of shared experiences, friendships for unaccompanied adolescent refugees often take on ‘suffused’ functions which blur the boundaries between conventional friendship and family roles. This study explores the ways in which such friendships help unaccompanied adolescent refugees to cope with the migration journey and the challenges of resettlement in Ireland. Innovative composite case material was constructed from my reflections on my psychotherapy work with 33 unaccompanied adolescent refugees (engaging in an average of 16 sessions each), as recorded in a reflective clinical journal and portrayed in eco-map photographs between 2016 and 2020. Reflexive and polytextual thematic analysis identified four themes, which captured the deep emotional and experiential bonds of these friendships, their importance in helping these young people to cope with the stressors of resettlement, perceptions of friends as proxy family, and the importance of God as a friend.