Baye Asfaw
Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London
UBEL Pathway: Health and Wellbeing
Supervisor: Professor Jonathan Smith
Contact details: Basfaw01@student.bbk.ac.uk
About Me
I hold an M.A. in Clinical Psychology and an M.Sc. in International Health from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia and Heidelberg University, Germany respectively. My area of research and practice focus mainly on understanding and helping curb the social determinants of mental health that creates unjust disadvantage among ´marginalized´ segments of society including refugees. In addition to my experience as a Psychology Lecturer and researcher in two different Ethiopian Universities, I have two years of field and project management experience working for international and local NGOs as an assistant project director and as a project coordinator, which involves overseeing mainly psychosocial support programs for marginalized groups including refugees and people who live with chronic illnesses such as HIV.
My Research
Rethinking cross-cultural psychotherapy: experiences of refugees and psychotherapists in London
Despite a high burden of mental health problems among refugees and asylum seekers, there is still limited knowledge about how mental health care can be effectively delivered to this group. The few existing studies are primarily limited to a superficial description of barriers, with pre-conceived theoretical explanations about what happens in cross-cultural psychotherapeutic encounter.
This study thus aims to shed some light on how refugees/asylum seekers respond to treatments, how they make meaning out of their interaction with a European psychotherapist (a European version of “a healer”) and how they integrate their explanatory model with those of the psychotherapists. In addition, it also aims to understand the reaction, experience and conceptualization of the process by psychotherapists who deal with “foreign or odd” explanatory models from refugees.
By applying Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as a guiding method to this inquiry, two groups of participants—refugees/asylum seekers and psychotherapists will be purposefully selected based on their unique and relevant experiences to answer the research questions. In doing so, semi-structured interviews will be used to collect data from the participants. Once the first interview is conducted with either of the group, data analysis will be carried out by a deeper engagement with every single case which will then be followed by pattern seeking analysis across cases without overlooking any significant difference in meaning across cases.
Impact of My Research
This study aims to contribute to facilitation of more equitable mental healthcare for Asylum Seekers and Refugees (ASRs) by understanding their cross-cultural psychotherapeutic experience.
This study aims to do that by providing practitioners who are working with ASRs get an insider perspective into what it means to work with this group, what the enablers and barriers are in cross-cultural psychotherapy (CCP) and how the contextual factors affect mental health of ASRs.
Furthermore, it is anticipated that the findings will provide a framework that encapsulates issues around CCP so that policy makers and educators can better contemplate their role in helping create a better access and effective response to the unmet mental health needs of ASRs.
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