ELENA MIBOLI' S EXPERIENCE
Working with asylum seekers and politica refugees
Dr. Elena Miboli
Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapist
Specialist in hospital psychology
Master in Schema Therapy for the treatment of personality disorders
Specialist in Ericksonian Clinical Hypnosis – she studied at the M. Erickson Institute of Turin.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1948 states in article 1 and 2: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood” and “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration…”
I started working in the S.P.R.A.R. project in May 2011 and by listening to the stories of men coming from “far away” I realized how human rights are violated with “inhuman” indifference. S.P.R.A.R. is an acronym for protection system for asylum seekers and refugees. S.P.R.A.R. is constituted by a network of local institutions with the objective of putting into practice integrated sheltering projects addressed to individuals who come to Italy because victims of persecution in their homeland. What motivations can lead a man to flee from his homeland?
They have been eradicated from their country, from their family and loved ones against their will, because they decided to rebel against regimes, or because they are homosexual, or because they are of an ethnic group that the government considers as “inadequate”. The psychological dimension of asylum seekers who come to Italy is still to be completely understood although, diagnostically speaking, they often are affected by post-traumatic stress disorders, depressive disorders, severe sleep disorders or adjustment disorders with depressed mood. Focusing only on the diagnostic aspect does not respect the complexity of the psycho-social issue. This is one of the reasons that allowed those who created the S.P.R.A.R. project to constitute a team to help asylum seekers in many ways: legal, educative, social, psychological. Professionals who take care of these aspects, with the aid of a cultural mediator, constantly work with them in order to provide shelter, tutoring and adequate support. The S.P.R.A.R. project in Piacenza, is part of the Social Cooperative Ippogrifo as well as the local district, which is represented by the social worker of the foreign citizens office.
The objectives of the project are: the reaching of psycho-physical well being, the learning of Italian language and the search for a job. These points are constantly reminded by several communications that are made within the team in order to identify effective strategies. The achievement of these objectives is difficult and often needs confrontations and calling one’s own way of being, prejudices “in the broadest meaning” and what every one of us brings to the group into question. The project, in fact, is designed on each person who arrives and the interaction with different people activates different behavioral schemes in each operator. In fact, the first personal and shared aim is making feel as “persons” those individuals who were never treated as such. In torture cases, their mind used defense mechanisms that allowed them to survive. It is thus fundamental to understand their fears, their traumas, in order to rebuild new objectives in the right time. These objectives can be achieved only when they will once again start to have trust in themselves, in others and in who can take care of them.
When I started working for the S.P.R.A.R. project, I conducted psychological sessions without using Ericksonian Hypnosis because I was afraid of not knowing how the users would have responded to this technique, which is so far from their cultural backgrounds (Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria). From an educational standpoint, the emotional aspect is not taken into account in African and Middle-East culture, therefore, especially in the case of M., working with hypnosis has been a pleasant discovery, a surprise, while still full of suffering, aimed to the achievement of a stable state of well being. The initial evaluation of some cases, in fact, contemplated the use of psychiatric drugs in order to improve psychological well being, because their pathologies prevented our patients to think about their future and therefore to use their resources in order to reach a positive integration. By using hypnosis we observed that positive results are immediate, therefore, drugs are rarely used and only in cases in which the patients were already taking them (3 users over 50).
THE STORY OF A MAN WHO ARRIVED IN ITALY.
M. is a 25 years old Sudanese boy. He told us that he had been living happily with his family, composed by his parents and 4 sisters, until fall 2003, when the Government decided to invade and destroy Darfur, as it was considered a land under the control of the government opposition. Survivors escaped in other countries and M. and his family took shelter in K., a city that was considered close to the government.
Shortly after, the government invaded that city too, devastating it and imprisoning several people, M. included. He was granted with probation for the night hours after three months of imprisonment. During the first three months of imprisonment, he was subject to tortures and physical violence of which he still bears the marks: burns, electric shocks, beatings. He was even kept in chains for several days. Despite the nocturnal freedom allowed to prisoners, the Government threatened: “If you run away, we will kill your family.” This ensured that inmates would come back to prison the morning after.
In July 2003 he succeeded in escaping with two other prisoners and he headed to J. which was, until July 2005, controlled by a major popular resistance group, which was able to block attacks from the government. Unfortunately, the government invaded and destroyed J. too.
M. succeeded in escaping to Libya with a friend, he was part of the opposition too. The travel has been very hard: it lasted 5 days on a small off-road vehicle which lead them to K. The arrival wasn’t as they had imagined: M. and his fellow travelers were imprisoned and repeatedly beaten because they invaded Libyan territory. During the tortures his close friend died in his arms because of high fever. Despaired, he succeeded in escaping and for five more years he wandered from town to town, finding temporary jobs, until when his last employer proposed him to go to Italy, where he may have finally find peace. After 5 days in open water, on a rubber boat, he reached Lampedusa. Now he lives in a city in the North and he wants to rebuild a new identity. He doesn’t know anything about his family, he relieves the massacre of his land, of his beloved ones, the death of his friend through dreams and flashbacks. Everyday he faces a terrible pain deep in his soul.
He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. With the aid of a cultural mediator we begun a psychotherapy program using hypnosis as main technique to face the trauma in order to effectively re-elaborate his memories and to make his anguish more sustainable.
Norredine (cultural mediator) and I established, with time, a good degree of confidence in each other that allowed me to work well with M. and other young people. During the first induction M. visualized his prison and, more specifically, the death of his dear friend. In the waking state he told me that he couldn’t stand the fact that he had been unable to do anything for him. He would have liked to take him to a doctor to cure him. Creating the hypnotic bubble has been easy, M. was completely at ease and ready to experience the trance.
He saw his friend lying down, blank, absent. The sweat of V. (his friend), was on his skin, it was cold and abundant, he felt it and shivered. M. tried to talk to him, to extract a word or an expression, but there was nothing he could do. I asked him if there was something else that he would have liked to do for V.! His face seemed relieved after that question. M. decided to ask a guard to help them escape. Fortunately he agreed when he saw that the situation in that cell was critical. M. recognized the eyes of his brother in the face of the guard. He said “It’s my brother!” He put the thin body of his friend on his shoulders and, with difficulty, he headed to the hospital. The road was long and M. continuously complained about the exertion. He said that he couldn’t make it to the hospital. I asked him whether he wanted to be helped by someone or to ask for a ride. He answered me that he couldn't see anybody around them. It was just him and V. in the middle of the desert. I suggested him to carefully control whether there was someone or something, inside or outside of him that could help them. He nodded after a moment. “My strength.” He told me that he had a lot of strength coming up from his stomach. This strength was white, I told him to expand it through all of his body. He did so and he succeeded in reaching the hospital. V. was examined and cured. He was at his bedside, the window showed a richly colored market. The face of V. was still blank. I asked him whether he wanted to tell him something to make him smile. M. decided to look him in the eyes and to smile at him and V. did the same while he was leaving once and for all.” M. opened his eyes and said “It was true, I was with V.” and tears started falling from his eyes, he smiled and thanked me, he held my hand repeating that he finally was able to do what he always wanted to do: trying to help his friend. M. at the end of the induction was relieved, it was evident and he confirmed it.
At the end of each session M. used to smile and cry, saying “Tank you!” I don’t expect that M. accepts not seeing his family or not thinking about his friend lost in a prison anymore, but I think that the fact that he now is once again able to trust someone is already a good result. After that induction M. stopped dreaming about V.
Dr. Elena Miboli
Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapist
Specialist in hospital psychology
Master in Schema Therapy for the treatment of personality disorders
Specialist in Ericksonian Clinical Hypnosis – she studied at the M. Erickson Institute of Turin.
Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapist
Specialist in hospital psychology
Master in Schema Therapy for the treatment of personality disorders
Specialist in Ericksonian Clinical Hypnosis – she studied at the M. Erickson Institute of Turin.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1948 states in article 1 and 2: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood” and “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration…”
I started working in the S.P.R.A.R. project in May 2011 and by listening to the stories of men coming from “far away” I realized how human rights are violated with “inhuman” indifference. S.P.R.A.R. is an acronym for protection system for asylum seekers and refugees. S.P.R.A.R. is constituted by a network of local institutions with the objective of putting into practice integrated sheltering projects addressed to individuals who come to Italy because victims of persecution in their homeland. What motivations can lead a man to flee from his homeland?
They have been eradicated from their country, from their family and loved ones against their will, because they decided to rebel against regimes, or because they are homosexual, or because they are of an ethnic group that the government considers as “inadequate”. The psychological dimension of asylum seekers who come to Italy is still to be completely understood although, diagnostically speaking, they often are affected by post-traumatic stress disorders, depressive disorders, severe sleep disorders or adjustment disorders with depressed mood. Focusing only on the diagnostic aspect does not respect the complexity of the psycho-social issue. This is one of the reasons that allowed those who created the S.P.R.A.R. project to constitute a team to help asylum seekers in many ways: legal, educative, social, psychological. Professionals who take care of these aspects, with the aid of a cultural mediator, constantly work with them in order to provide shelter, tutoring and adequate support. The S.P.R.A.R. project in Piacenza, is part of the Social Cooperative Ippogrifo as well as the local district, which is represented by the social worker of the foreign citizens office.
The objectives of the project are: the reaching of psycho-physical well being, the learning of Italian language and the search for a job. These points are constantly reminded by several communications that are made within the team in order to identify effective strategies. The achievement of these objectives is difficult and often needs confrontations and calling one’s own way of being, prejudices “in the broadest meaning” and what every one of us brings to the group into question. The project, in fact, is designed on each person who arrives and the interaction with different people activates different behavioral schemes in each operator. In fact, the first personal and shared aim is making feel as “persons” those individuals who were never treated as such. In torture cases, their mind used defense mechanisms that allowed them to survive. It is thus fundamental to understand their fears, their traumas, in order to rebuild new objectives in the right time. These objectives can be achieved only when they will once again start to have trust in themselves, in others and in who can take care of them.
When I started working for the S.P.R.A.R. project, I conducted psychological sessions without using Ericksonian Hypnosis because I was afraid of not knowing how the users would have responded to this technique, which is so far from their cultural backgrounds (Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria). From an educational standpoint, the emotional aspect is not taken into account in African and Middle-East culture, therefore, especially in the case of M., working with hypnosis has been a pleasant discovery, a surprise, while still full of suffering, aimed to the achievement of a stable state of well being. The initial evaluation of some cases, in fact, contemplated the use of psychiatric drugs in order to improve psychological well being, because their pathologies prevented our patients to think about their future and therefore to use their resources in order to reach a positive integration. By using hypnosis we observed that positive results are immediate, therefore, drugs are rarely used and only in cases in which the patients were already taking them (3 users over 50).
THE STORY OF A MAN WHO ARRIVED IN ITALY.
M. is a 25 years old Sudanese boy. He told us that he had been living happily with his family, composed by his parents and 4 sisters, until fall 2003, when the Government decided to invade and destroy Darfur, as it was considered a land under the control of the government opposition. Survivors escaped in other countries and M. and his family took shelter in K., a city that was considered close to the government.
Shortly after, the government invaded that city too, devastating it and imprisoning several people, M. included. He was granted with probation for the night hours after three months of imprisonment. During the first three months of imprisonment, he was subject to tortures and physical violence of which he still bears the marks: burns, electric shocks, beatings. He was even kept in chains for several days. Despite the nocturnal freedom allowed to prisoners, the Government threatened: “If you run away, we will kill your family.” This ensured that inmates would come back to prison the morning after.
In July 2003 he succeeded in escaping with two other prisoners and he headed to J. which was, until July 2005, controlled by a major popular resistance group, which was able to block attacks from the government. Unfortunately, the government invaded and destroyed J. too.
M. succeeded in escaping to Libya with a friend, he was part of the opposition too. The travel has been very hard: it lasted 5 days on a small off-road vehicle which lead them to K. The arrival wasn’t as they had imagined: M. and his fellow travelers were imprisoned and repeatedly beaten because they invaded Libyan territory. During the tortures his close friend died in his arms because of high fever. Despaired, he succeeded in escaping and for five more years he wandered from town to town, finding temporary jobs, until when his last employer proposed him to go to Italy, where he may have finally find peace. After 5 days in open water, on a rubber boat, he reached Lampedusa. Now he lives in a city in the North and he wants to rebuild a new identity. He doesn’t know anything about his family, he relieves the massacre of his land, of his beloved ones, the death of his friend through dreams and flashbacks. Everyday he faces a terrible pain deep in his soul.
He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. With the aid of a cultural mediator we begun a psychotherapy program using hypnosis as main technique to face the trauma in order to effectively re-elaborate his memories and to make his anguish more sustainable.
Norredine (cultural mediator) and I established, with time, a good degree of confidence in each other that allowed me to work well with M. and other young people. During the first induction M. visualized his prison and, more specifically, the death of his dear friend. In the waking state he told me that he couldn’t stand the fact that he had been unable to do anything for him. He would have liked to take him to a doctor to cure him. Creating the hypnotic bubble has been easy, M. was completely at ease and ready to experience the trance.
He saw his friend lying down, blank, absent. The sweat of V. (his friend), was on his skin, it was cold and abundant, he felt it and shivered. M. tried to talk to him, to extract a word or an expression, but there was nothing he could do. I asked him if there was something else that he would have liked to do for V.! His face seemed relieved after that question. M. decided to ask a guard to help them escape. Fortunately he agreed when he saw that the situation in that cell was critical. M. recognized the eyes of his brother in the face of the guard. He said “It’s my brother!” He put the thin body of his friend on his shoulders and, with difficulty, he headed to the hospital. The road was long and M. continuously complained about the exertion. He said that he couldn’t make it to the hospital. I asked him whether he wanted to be helped by someone or to ask for a ride. He answered me that he couldn't see anybody around them. It was just him and V. in the middle of the desert. I suggested him to carefully control whether there was someone or something, inside or outside of him that could help them. He nodded after a moment. “My strength.” He told me that he had a lot of strength coming up from his stomach. This strength was white, I told him to expand it through all of his body. He did so and he succeeded in reaching the hospital. V. was examined and cured. He was at his bedside, the window showed a richly colored market. The face of V. was still blank. I asked him whether he wanted to tell him something to make him smile. M. decided to look him in the eyes and to smile at him and V. did the same while he was leaving once and for all.” M. opened his eyes and said “It was true, I was with V.” and tears started falling from his eyes, he smiled and thanked me, he held my hand repeating that he finally was able to do what he always wanted to do: trying to help his friend. M. at the end of the induction was relieved, it was evident and he confirmed it.
At the end of each session M. used to smile and cry, saying “Tank you!” I don’t expect that M. accepts not seeing his family or not thinking about his friend lost in a prison anymore, but I think that the fact that he now is once again able to trust someone is already a good result. After that induction M. stopped dreaming about V.
Dr. Elena Miboli
Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapist
Specialist in hospital psychology
Master in Schema Therapy for the treatment of personality disorders
Specialist in Ericksonian Clinical Hypnosis – she studied at the M. Erickson Institute of Turin.
