| The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of trauma among twelve Bhutanese refugee women who are survivors of torture. The focus was on capturing the experiences of each woman, including their stories of torture, sexual assault, murder of relatives, the deaths of children, and witnessing atrocities. The design included a semi-structured interview, in which I recorded participants' narratives and attempted to understand their perceptions of their lived experiences.;Western trauma theories emphasize internal emotional and biological factors in understanding how an individual processes and responds to catastrophic events. These theories hold assumptions that may not be relevant to non-western refugees, who are more likely to believe that something other than trauma or mental illness causes personal distress. Results from the interviews showed that cultural factors such as differences in notions of self, differences in attributions to distress, stigma associated with mental illness, and linguistic concepts, influenced the ways in which symptoms were understood, formed, and expressed.;Cultural forces shape symptom formation and the mode of distress expressed by psychiatric patients. It is extremely important to understand the way in which different cultures understand, explain, and express their experience of the world in order for clients to have a more effective therapeutic outcome. In treatment, a thorough cultural formulation should be part of the intake, and a more culturally sensitive therapeutic approach, such as narrative therapy and community-based interventions, should be integrated into the treatment process. |
