Honors Theses

Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Croft Institute for International Studies

First Advisor

Kate Centellas

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

The Syrian civil war created millions of refugees who are internally displaced across Syria and in surrounding host countries. The use of violence and forms of warfare against the Geneva Convention make this crisis particularly traumatic for civilians, leading to high rates of PTSD and depression among the refugee population. Relying on concepts of structural violence and the ecology of health, I justify the use of a psychosocial framework to build refugee crisis response in Jordan. I performed ethnographic fieldwork to collect data in the form of stakeholder and care provider interviews and training manuals, and I analyzed and critiqued issues around implementing the psychosocial care framework. In this study, the results fell into four, broad categories: the stigma associated with mental illness and stress-related conditions, the view of mental health and psychosocial care as non-traditional medicine, the sheer scale of psychosocial care needed, and legal issues of providing these services in Jordan. These results led to conclusions that psychosocial care implementation will likely require cultural perceptions around mental illness to change and a large commitment by host countries and the international community must be made. New innovations in medical technology and better understanding around mental illness will ease and improve the implementation of a psychosocial care infrastructure that reduces suffering from mental illness.

Comments

A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for completion of the Bachelor of Arts degree in International Studies from the Croft Institute for International Studies and the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College.

Accessibility Status

Searchable text

Included in

Anthropology Commons

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.