Post Traumatic Survival: The Lessons of Cambodian Resilience

Some refugees who survive wars recover and thrive; others do not. This study sets out to discover what successful survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime found instrumental for both their survival and their mental health. The aim is to contribute to the understanding of resilience, here understood as the ability to recover from misfortune or change, in order to contribute to the psychosocial rehabilitation of survivors of war crimes and other traumatic events - to discover how war-refugees may be best assisted in processes of recovery and normalisation. The experience of earlier refugee groups has remained a largely untapped resource in this work. Psychosocial guidelines for accessing patients' cultural backgrounds are available, but health and social workers often fail to access the cultural explanatory models used by survivors in building personal and group resilience. Proposals from the project are incorporated in a cultural resilience interview scheme for the use of health and social workers wishing to conduct resilience work with war survivors.