Crisis intervention with survivors of torture

Providing crisis services to refugee clients demands that practitioners dev elop knowledge and skills to address the trauma that accompanies migration. Beyond coping with the basic standards for living in a new country, surviv ors of torture must also deal with the legacy of their experiences from the ir homeland. Due to the complexity of issues surrounding the effects of tor ture, crisis interventions must be centered in a multidisciplinary communit y effort. Crisis events faced during the migration process are reviewed in this paper with special attention to the particular needs of survivors of t orture. The effects of torture, including physiological, psychological, and social impacts are reviewed. Selected professional issues faced by profess ionals who work with refugee populations are discussed including, the asses sment of torture impact on the family, developing a working alliance with c ulturally diverse refugees, countertransference issues in working with surv ivors of torture, and recommendations for mobilizing a multidisciplinary ap proach to intervention.