Refugees in Church Asylum: Intervention Between Political Conflict and Individual Suffering

Work with refugees in church asylum is an example of applied Peace Psychology that considers the interaction between wider collective conflicts and their manifestations in individual lives. This article presents the qualitative study of a Kurdish refugee couple who stayed 8 months in church asylum. The case opens by describing the couple's political sufferings in Turkey and Germany. It continues with an account of their asylum saga and the numerous everyday challenges they confront. Political strategies in support of the asylum issue entail addressing legal accusations, creating positive political identities in the public mind, and expanding the support group. Psychological interventions must be politically sensitive to the asylum-seekers' history and current context. Effective psychological interventions include relaxation, framing a political meaning for suffering, creating a home–country cultural atmosphere, and processing trauma.