In the past few years, major transformations have occurred in relationships between Western societies and refugees seeking a home within their borders. A marked increase in the influx of refugees and asylum seekers into these host societies has coincided with polarization in receiving societies’ collective representations of refugees, associated with socioeconomic and political dynamics shattering European and North American majorities’ privileges in a globalizing world [1]. Policy responses to the growing demands of refugee reception have fueled polarized debates about both solidarity and exclusion within political discourses and local communities.

With the sharp increase of refugees’ arrival and resettlement in western communities, adequate mental health care forms a pivotal dimension in host societies’ responses to those individuals and communities. Clinical literature shows a growing interest in the development of family therapy approaches with refugees, in which therapeutic practice engages with the pivotal role of refugee family dynamics in post-trauma reconstruction and adaptation in resettlement and aims at supporting post-trauma reconstruction through strengthening capacities to restore safety, meaning, and connectedness within family relationships. In this chapter, we focus on trauma narration or the narrative restoration of meaning as central mode of posttrauma reparation, and we explore its specific dynamics and relational complexities in therapeutic practice with refugee families. We build on theoretical and clinical scholarly work on trauma narration to develop a phased approach of interventive modes in working with trauma narration in refugee care. A clinical case analysis illustrates the cyclic engagement with the phased approach.

The negative impact of pre- and post-migration adversity on mental health among refugee populations has been well documented, but a growing body of research indicates refugees’ resilience and family coping. Investigating resilience and coping among refugee families entails a close analysis of individual- and family-level protective factors, spousal dynamics, parenting styles, ethnocultural identification, and meaning-makings of pre- and post-migration experiences. The aim of the study reported in this chapter is to examine the migration narratives of eight West African refugee families (n = 16) in order to identify patterns of sociocultural and familial sources of resilience. Twenty-four qualitative interviews were analyzed. Findings indicate the role of cultural continuity, collectivism, religiosity, adaptive flexibility, and downward comparison as sociocultural protective factors and sources of resilience. Clinicians working with non-Western refugee populations should assess for sociocultural modes of coping and incorporate them into clinical and other psychosocial treatments and interventions.

Through a collection of clinical and academic voices, this book has aimed to regroup and further shape knowledge on refugee families and their role in coping with traumatic migration histories and diasporic identities in its members. Across the volume, contributions in Part I account for the growing empirical interest in documenting the refugee family unit as a dynamic system of interacting personal, transgenerational, and collective meaning systems, imbuing family relationships in exile with forms of relational and cultural dynamics of trauma coping and resilience. Parts II and III shift this systemic understanding into clinical practice, with contributions that provide a window into diverging modalities of working with refugee families, with contributions including different client system compositions, sectors, and systems-theoretical inspirations, located within particular national and local settings.