Events

This presentation will focus on several forms of group interventions/psychotherapy developed for assisting survivors of man-made violence, like torture and war. It will encompass more than 20 years of the author’s work in different contexts and settings, from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to Georgia, Rwanda and the Netherlands. Group interventions discussed are both clinical and community based. 

Clinical experiences will be presented alongside with outcome research of the context-sensitive group treatment approach aiming at helping asylum seekers and refugees with impacts of psychological trauma and resettlement stress. This approach has been designed and applied by the author and his team throughout the past 15 years. This group treatment is phase-based and trauma-focused, it combines group psychotherapy with non-verbal therapies (psychomotor therapy, art therapy, and music therapy), it is executed within a day treatment setting, and lasts for 1 year. The approach does not exclusively focus on treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other co-morbid axis I and II disorders, but includes interventions targeting damaged core-beliefs, guilt, shame, grief, marital and systemic problems, legal issues due to procedure of seeking asylum, and other resettlement stressors.

Boris Drožđek, MD, PhD, is psychiatrist and medical director of the Psychotrauma Centrum Zuid Nederland/Reinier van Arkel in Den Bosch, The Netherlands. He publishes in the field of psychotraumatology and transcultural psychiatry, teaches, and gives trainings and workshops on regular basis internationally. Together with John P. Wilson he has edited two acclaimed volumes - Broken Spirits: Treatment of traumatized asylum seekers and refugees - war and torture victims (Brunner-Routledge, 2004), and Voices of Trauma: Treating Survivors Across Cultures (Springer, 2007).Since 2001, he is the international director of the International Summer School of Psychotrauma in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Dr. Drožđek is the executive committee member of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), former board member of the Dutch-Flemish Society for Psychotrauma (NtVP), member of the Scientific Committee of the International Society for Health and Human Rights (ISHHR) and member of the ESTSS (European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies), APA (American Psychiatric Association), and NVvP (Nederlandse Vereniging voor Psychiatrie).