ABSTRACT
The participants in this research had all fled their country of origin in which they had been exposed to direct violence or had witnessed violence within the context of political upheavals such as civil war. While in the UK the participants had been diagnosed with some form of psychosis, such as hearing voices, seeing visions, or had expressed delusional ideas. There was no indication that these participants had been diagnosed with psychosis before the trauma. The experiences of the participants were explored using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).
One theme that emerged was ‘bleak agitated immobility’, that is, a sense of not been at rest, of having to keep moving somewhere, and yet in a bleak landscape. Several of these participants were also preoccupied with the idea of dying and in fact in some cases wanting to join their dead relatives. The trauma left the participants with a sense of being completely broken to the extent that their personality or self had changed. They no longer felt they could trust others. The voices heard by participants had thematic links to the trauma they had experienced such as hearing soldiers or lost family members.
