Culturally Adapted Cognitive Behavioral Group Therapy for Mental Disorders in Refugees plus Problem Management Training (CA-CBT+): A randomized controlled trial (ReTreat)

The mental health of refugees is affected by the strains caused by traumatic experiences before and during flight, plus the strains caused by the loss of the social and cultural background and the adaption to a new, often provisional and uncertain life situation. Then again refugees make less use of Western-influenced psychotherapy offers. Culturally adapted behavioral cognitive therapy is a group based approach promoting resilience, using social support and improving the resources of refugees to cope better with these challenges. The offers taken from Western tradition of psychotherapy will be adapted to the cultural background of the participants.

Our working group adapted the program developed by Prof. Devon E. Hinton at the Harvard Medical School Boston for East Asian refugees to the characteristics of Afghan and Syrian refugees. The cultural adapted cognitive behavioral group therapy is offered by cultural competent psychotherapists, if applicable native speakers and was tested in various pilot studies (Kananian et al., 2017; Kananian et al., in press).

The ReTreat-project is spread over five years (sub project 2) comparing in a randomized controlled study the efficacy of the cultural adapted cognitive behavioral therapy (CA-CBT) to Treatment as Usual (TAU) in a sample of refugees suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. The treatment consists of twelve-sessions of a transdiagnostic group intervention which includes psychoeducation, social problem management training, behavioral activation, yoga and meditation.