Editorial by Paul Tibbles in dialogue with Ncazelo Ncube
This edition of Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry (CCPP) has developed in the context of ongoing and increasing international alarm at the levels of displaced children, young people and families seeking refuge from persecution, war and economic privations. Initially as special editor, my focus was on how to promote articles which addressed the immediate and long-term needs of these people and the therapeutic care that should be made available to them. However, I was aware of divergent views that existed between some practitioners who focussed on addressing trauma, while others were attentive to promoting resilience. Among the many other issues which I considered important were the long-term effects on parents of losing a child during conflict, cultural sensitivity of services, the wider political context, and the impact of vicarious trauma and vicarious resilience on health and social care staff. I think that the articles in this edition cover many of these issues which are highly relevant when addressing the psychological well-being of displaced and persecuted children and families. Although these articles are derived from different parts of the globe, they inevitably reflect a bias towards researchers and clinicians originating from more affluent recipient countries rather than the perspective of those working in emerging economies. It was with this in mind that I approached Ncazelo Ncube to ask her to engage with me in an email dialogue about our different perspectives on how best to promote the psychological development and well-being of children, young people and families seeking asylum and refuge. Ncazelo is well known for her work in South Africa using narrative approaches with displaced children (Ncube, 2006). Our email dialogue is located below and, as can be gathered, there was considerable reflection about our own history and cultural context and how that impacted on the way we made sense of what we experienced and the ramifications of this on our work. Paul: Life contains periodic poignant coincidences and such an incident happened to me while preparing to write this editorial. A number of unexpected conjunctions in my own life had ramifications and connections with my thinking about the victims of war, refugee families and unaccompanied children seeking sanctuary. Prior to starting to write the editorial, I was called to jury service for a trial in a part of London where I had moved to from Devon almost 40 years earlier. At that time, it was a desolate and empty area of derelict warehouses surrounded by the last remaining bombsites in the city. I revelled in being able to walk through this during the working week without seeing another person. It was truly Dickensian. Now, it has some of the most expensive real estate in the country, there are vast crowds of people walking along its footpaths and the last remaining physical memories of World War II have been erased. The 755775 CCP0010.1177/1359104518755775Clinical Child Psychology and PsychiatryEditorial editorial2018
Future Partnerships in Global Mental Health Foreseeing the Encounter of Psychiatrists and Traditional Healers
Mental disorders are highly prevalent worldwide, yet mental health care is scarce or inappropriate, especially in developing countries. The majority of the 450 million patients with mental disorders around the world are not receiving even the most basic mental health care. In developing countries, 76.3–85.4% of serious cases receive no treatment. Unfortunately, the unnecessary suffering is likely to worsen, as the global burden of disease attributable to psychiatric and substance use disorders is expected to rise in the coming decade. This chapter unveils some important traditional healers’ contributions. Among them are the following: (i) the role their psychosocial and clinical skills have played in the implementation of community and public health treatment programs for physical illness; (ii)their facilitation of culturally competent clinical care; and (iii) their limited, although effective, participation in unique collaborations with psychiatric treatment personnel. It also highlights their role in diminishing stigma related to mental illness and the reintegration of prison inmates and children soldiers into their communities. This chapter urges that the contributions of traditional healers should be welcomed in a world characterized by serious biomedical workforce shortages, limited funding, global mental health service inequalities and enormous unmet needs for mental health services.
Developmental aphasia: The perception of brief vowels and extended stop consonants
Abstract Developmental dysphasics and matched controls were examined for their ability to discriminate (a) two synthesized vowel-vowel syllables and (b) two synthesized consonant- vowel syllables. For both vowels and consonants, dysphasics were impaired when the discriminable components of the two stimuli were brief (43 msec) but unimpaired when these components were 95 msec or longer. It is concluded that developmental dysphasics have no difficulty in discriminating transitional auditory information as such and that their impaired discrimination of synthesized stop consonants is attributable solely to the brief duration of the discriminable components.