Are We All Post Traumatic Yet? A Critical Narrative Review of Trauma Among Arab Refugees

Abstract

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is one of the most studied, diagnosed, and treated mental health disorders in settings of war and displacement. A large body of literature has questioned the utility of the PTSD framework and its application to traumatic stress among populations experiencing wars, political violence, and displacement that is chronic and on a population level. No review has yet summarized the conceptual alternatives proposed by scholars for refugees in or from the Arab region. Our article reviews conceptual articles from the last three decades that propose alternative frameworks to understand trauma and traumatic stress among Arab refugees in the Arab region. We have identified nine articles that critiqued the applicability of PTSD framework for Arab refugees and/or provided alternative key concepts. Themes such as the individualistic nature of PTSD, the nature and longitude of traumatic stress, the “normalization of traumatic stress,” and the medicalization of trauma have emerged. The articles also discuss social justice as recovery, diagnostic recommendations, and the flow of knowledge production from the Global North to the Global South. Our article expands a growing body of literature critiquing the applicability of Western psychiatric models in settings in the Global South, specifically the Arab region.