ABSTRACT

The chapter presents the results of a working group on “Refugees in Public Policy and Mental Representation” in the frame of the Dialogue School “Migration – Trauma in Transition” in Sarajevo, 2017. The group included psychoanalysts, psychologists and psychiatrists, refugee experts and social trauma researchers. The group reflected on the specific situation of migrants who come from a situation marked by social trauma, in many cases re-experiencing a socially traumatic situation on the dangerous journey to Europe, then entering a social situation in their host countries characterised by different historical traumatic identities. The main issues that were marked in the discussion concerned (1) identity, (2) pathologising, (3) individualisation and dignity, and (4) claiming a political voice.