Client States

Australia's Offshore Detainees and the Limits of Therapy

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2289154
AutoresAaron Neiman (0000-0001-6928-6690, Stanford University Department of Anthropology, Building 50, 450 Serra Mall Stanford CA 94305, autor correspondente)
Ano2023
Volume37
Fascículo3
Páginas264-279
Data de publicação2023-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoMedical Anthropology Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0745-5194 • E-ISSN: 1548-1387
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/maq.12763
PMID37243980
OpenAlexW4378529885
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas47

Mental health has become an exceptionally important social and public health issue in Australia. The government has invested billions of dollars in new services, while ubiquitous ad campaigns call on ordinary people to tend to their psychological well-being. This national valorization of mental health is striking, given the well-documented psychiatric harm suffered by refugees under Australia's offshore detention regime. This article draws on ethnographic work with a group of volunteer therapists who provide crisis counseling to these detained refugees over WhatsApp, allowing them to intervene in scenarios where therapy is inaccessible but badly needed. Highlighting the predictable challenges and surprising affordances of delivering care in this restrictive and high-stakes context, I show how my informants forge a genuine therapeutic connection with their clients. While this intervention is meaningful, I argue that the volunteers are aware that it is no substitute for winning political freedom

Context (archaeology · Criminology · Ethnography · Government (linguistics · Harm · Mental health · Political science · Politics · Psychiatry · Public relations · Refugee · Sociology · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · History · Law · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Psychology