Makeover for trauma

A new psychiatric method for treating post-traumatic stress disorder arrives from Harvard The Royal University of Phnom Penh’s psychology students have become the first in the world to be taught a new holistic model of trauma treatment aimed at helping refugees. It’s hoped the model could be useful as Cambodia faces an influx of refugees via Australia’s detention centres and asylum-seeking Montagnards from Vietnam. Developed by Harvard University’s refugee trauma program, HPRT, the “H5 Model” has been designed to get counsellors to concentrate on survivors’ “trauma stories” in order to better understand their personal contexts and consequently provide better care. Michael Hirsch, a visiting assistant professor who began teaching the newly developed model at RUPP this year, explained that other therapy models did not take into account survivors’ individual living situations, cultural and religious beliefs or health. For example, cognitive behavioural therapy provides techniques to change a patient’s thought processes but does not address patients’ individual context. The H5 Model, on the other hand, is based around exploring five overlapping areas key to trauma recovery: human rights, humiliation, self-healing, health promotion and habitat.