The Somali community in the UK: What we know and how we ... - ICAR

‘now’, after an encounter with counselling. Bringing
people to the point of seeking this culturally
unfamiliar process is another matter. Even after the
experience some were negative:
I do not see the benefit of talking to a
psychiatrist about problems. I thought
psychiatrists saw mad or mentally ill people.
(ibid: 84)
I am not sure whether talking about worries is
useful to refugee people who have other major
difficulties in adapting to a new country. (ibid:
82)
What will the specialist do to take away all the
problems we have? (ibid: 83)
Individuals differ in their reaction to counselling
- younger men and women with more exposure
to western preoccupations with emotions and
relationships may be more receptive. For their
parents, with so many practical problems to face,
talking may seem to be beside the point. Yet the
psychological effect of daily realities is the first
of two areas identified by Gabriel and Ritchie
in their informative overview of Somali mental
health in Tower Hamlets (2002). The issues already
raised in previous sections - language, housing
(including homelessness), unemployment, racism,
social benefits and poverty - all can contribute to
insecurity and stress. 115 Uncertainty about leave to
remain is a major cause of anxiety, as one Somali
man emphasised:
The government should give quick decisions for
asylum seekers about their immigration process:
the longer the decision takes, the more they will
be demoralised and pushed to drugs. The minds
of refugees can’t be settled unless they get a
decision. (Lukes and Bell, 2002: 67)
An individual may have a lurking propensity for
mental instability, and a serious practical problem
may push the worrier over the edge. Difficult
material circumstances also contribute to a sense
of social exclusion; the experience of living on
the margins of society has profound psychological
repercussions.
The second, and related, area is cultural difference.
Social problems are not the preserve of Somalis,
but the attempt to deal with their effects is
more successful when made by a member of the
community:
I can only have the confidence of contacting a
specialist if there is someone who will help with
the language. Without communication you feel
like the whole world is closed from you. (Farah
and Smith, 1999: 84)
Somali health professionals can share both
the language and the client’s mindset. They will
understand that faced with the offer of counselling,
Somalis want to start with discussing concrete
concerns rather than their psychological effects.
Somali practitioners have often undergone the
refugee experience themselves, and maintain
that by addressing the practical problems first,
trust is established, stress reduced, and the client
encouraged to ‘open up’ about their nightmares
and powerful emotions. Abdirashid Gulaid, a
Daryeelka Maanka caseworker, finds that he is
accepted into Somali homes where the door has
been shut on a British psychiatric nurse. 116 Yet
the majority of Somalis like Abdi who work in the
field of health come from the voluntary sector.
In statutory bodies there are few - there is no
Somali doctor in his borough of Tower Hamlets,
only three Somali health care assistants in hospitals,
one counsellor and one trainee student. 117 This
is unfortunate. Only a Somali practitioner can
truly appreciate the effects of war which have
touched every Somali refugee - whether the
terror of torture, rape, and the threat of death,
the experience of abandoning home and fleeing
Somalia, the grief of bereavement, or the fear for
family and friends left behind. The war wounds and
physical disabilities inflicted by the war have their
psychological equivalents. “According to a Somali
advocate for mental health”, writes Green (2001:
26), “there are more cases of persistent traumatic
mental stress than settlement related problems
among the Somali community”. Memories lock
people into the past, and rumours of current chaos
generate an anxious malaise and stop them moving
on:
56 The Somali community in the UK