ABSTRACT
Some years back I was asked to do some pro bono work with war refugees. For various reasons, St. Louis had become a destination for refugees, and since the last several years had seen quite a few wars, there was a lot of work to be done. At first, I mostly conducted diagnostic assessments that were used for legal purposes, such as determining if someone had to learn English before applying for citizenship, or had a psychiatric diagnosis that might militate against being deported. Eventually, I worked for a clinical agency to do therapeutic work. I had been working as an analyst and psychiatrist off the bureaucratic grid, so to speak, for several years before then, and filling out forms and questionnaires as a way of documenting the need for treatment and its progress was a new experience for me, or at least one I hadn’t had in a long time; rather, 20 years ago I had to do things like this, but nowhere near as much paperwork went into it then as now.
