Cultural narratives of healing in forced migration

: Insights from the literature and perspectives from systemic therapists

Abstract

Section A. What Does the Literature Tell Us About Narratives of Healing Among People Who Have Experienced Forced Migration?

Background and Aims: This review synthesised studies capturing narratives of healing among people with experiences of forced migration, understood here as the ways individuals make sense of and describe emotional recovery within their cultural and social contexts.

Method: A systematic search of four databases identified 17 qualitative studies focused on 302 refugees, asylum seekers, or displaced individuals. Thematic synthesis was used to analyse the data, and study quality was appraised using the CASP tool.

Results: The included studies were generally of strong methodological quality, although some variability was identified in reflexivity and reporting of researcher bias. Two overarching themes and five subthemes emerged. These explored home as a site of rupture, nostalgia, and negotiated belonging, alongside healing approaches that recognised recovery as an ongoing, relational process.

Conclusion: Healing among people of forced migration is dynamic and non-linear. Participants navigated trauma through internal strengths, cultural continuity, meaning making, and supportive relationships, fostering belonging and agency. Reclaiming narrative control countered disempowering refugee narratives. These findings highlight the importance of interventions that promote cultural connection, social integration, and individual agency. Further research should explore how diverse healing narratives shape support needs, while continuing to prioritise reflexive transparency and clear reporting of researcher positioning and recruitment processes.

Section B. Exploring Cultural Healing Narratives: Perspectives from Systemic Therapists with experience of working with, or being, Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Background and aims: This study explored how systemic therapists with experience of working with, or being, refugees and asylum seekers narrate healing and how power dynamics are represented within these stories. Healing was understood as culturally shaped, relational, and embedded within the sociopolitical conditions of forced migration.

Method: Recruitment used purposive and snowball sampling, and ten systemic therapists participated in individual interviews. Narrative analysis examined how participants constructed meanings of healing and power, attending to story content, structure, interactional context, and links to broader cultural narratives.

Results: Participants narrated healing as an ongoing, non-linear process shaped by ongoing survival and sociopolitical harm. Healing was described as emerging through relational attunement, steady accompaniment, and small moments of reconnection to identity, community, and belonging. Embodied and collective practices supported this. Power was portrayed as fluid and situational: participants were sometimes positioned as powerful in therapeutic roles yet constrained by wider systems. Many described negotiating a middle ground by softening authority, co-constructing meaning, and using institutional power for advocacy.

Conclusion: Healing in the context of forced migration was storied as relational, contextual, and collectively shaped. Attending to power, cultural meaning, and survival needs is essential for therapeutic practice and future research.

Date of Award	2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Canterbury Christ Church University