Home-Based Family Therapy: An Illustration of Clinical Work with a Liberian Refugee

Abstract

In this paper the author provides a case illustration of home-based systemic therapy performed in the U.S., with a female survivor from a war-affected region of West Africa. Providing clinical services in a person’s home has been shown to be an effective way to engage those who are otherwise unlikely to seek out mental health services. In this paper, first-person narrative vignettes about the therapy endeavor illustrate how working in the context of the client’s home assisted the clinician in eliciting rich information about the resourcefulness of the client in constructing a new life for herself in her host country. Such information tends to be overlooked in literature about work with refugee survivors of war. Every Friday at 10 a.m., I travel to West Africa. I drive one hour from my suburban neighborhood, down city streets, across the big bridge, and through neighborhoods I never have reason to visit otherwise. When I arrive at my destination, 45 minutes after I’ve begun, I am at an apartment building with a distinct 1970s look to it. Parking my car neatly in a tiny guest spot near the office, I walk to the second floor of a building adjacent to the apartment office. Outside her door, I knock, and a few minutes pass before a smiling, well-coiffed young woman, Veronique, 1 welcomes me inside. For the next hour I will be a guest in her home, her personal representation of a small piece of Liberia, West Africa, transplanted to a living room in the U.S.