The British Journal of Psychiatry (2007) 191: 3-4. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.106.034439
© 2007 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Asylum claims and memory of trauma: sharing our knowledge
Jane Herlihy, MPhil, DClinPsych, CPsychol
Trauma Clinic, London, Department of Clinical Psychology, University of
Bristol, and Department of Psychology, University College London
Stuart W. Turner, MD, BChir, MA, FRCP, FRCPsych
Trauma Clinic, London and Department of Psychology, University College
London, UK
Correspondence:
Dr Jane Herlihy, Centre for the Study of Emotion and Law, 7 Devonshire Street,
London W1W 5DY, UK. Email:
j.herlihy{at}csel.org.uk
Declaration of interest None.

ABSTRACT
Decisions about asylum are extremely difficult because of the
absence of a
body of objective evidence. Psychiatrists and
psychologists have a breadth of
knowledge relating to the memory
of trauma which could help to inform the
asylum process, but
we need to investigate how to apply this knowledge and how
to
make it accessible to decision makers.

INTRODUCTION
In the UK, 25 710 applications for asylum were made in 2005
by people who
claimed they were forced to leave their countries
because of a fear of
persecution. There were 33 940 appeals
determined by the appeal court, the
Asylum and Immigration
Tribunal (
Home
Office, 2005). In order to make a claim, the
asylum seeker usually
has to relate a coherent account of events
that they have experienced and
which they claim led them to
fear a return to their country. Of course, some
will not have
had the experiences that they allege they will be
presenting
a false story in order to gain entry to the UK. The legal process
for identifying valid claims involves written statements, interviews
and court
hearings, and is intended to identify those with
a well-founded fear of
persecution as defined in the 1951 Geneva
Convention Relating to the Status of
Refugees. One of the challenges
with this jurisdiction is that decisions often
have to be based
on little more than the story that the claimant presents. The
decision maker usually has to determine whether or not this
is credible, in
the absence of independent corroborating evidence
about the applicant's
personal experience.

BREADTH OF EVIDENCE
The Working Party for Medical Evidence of the International
Association of
Refugee Law Judges
(
http://www.iarlj.nl)
has
as its remit to consider whether, and if so what, general principles
apply
to the form, reception and evaluation of expert evidence.
Currently in the UK,
expert reports are rarely requested by
the authorities for asylum cases, and
never by the courts;
solicitors acting for the asylum seeker have discretion
to
request expert reports in individual cases. John Barnes, one
of the
founding members of the working party, has argued that,
because medical
evidence is usually written in the form of
a report for one specific claimant,
there is `no... breadth
of evidence to assist in the evaluation of medical
expert evidence'
(
Barnes, 2004:
p. 354). We propose, using the example of memory
functioning, that there is a
body of general evidence, but
that more research is required into its
application in this
context.

MEMORY
One of the key factors when presenting a case for asylum is
the ability of
the asylum seeker to remember past experiences,
usually traumatic, and give a
coherent account of these to
officials. A common assumption is that an
experience of severe
violence or torture will be so important that it will be
remembered
very clearly over the long term. If applicants for asylum change
their account of their experiences (give discrepant accounts),
this is
therefore taken to suggest fabrication. This is an
understandable view but one
which is challenged by scientific
evidence.
Memory and trauma
When people witness accidents or crimes, some details are more likely to be
remembered than others. Eyewitnesses to highly emotive events, such as violent
crimes, tend to have a good memory for central details (moments central to the
narrative or emotional gist of the event). However, these central details will
be remembered at the expense of details peripheral to the overall unfolding of
the event (Christianson & Safer,
1996).
We also know that when people are interviewed about what they have seen, it
is possible to influence their answers. Questioning techniques used by the
police and the courts have been modified following work on `suggestibility'
which shows that the wording of a question can influence the answer given,
even by well-meaning witnesses (Gudjonsson,
1997).
When it comes to memories of personal experiences, we also know that
emotion plays a big part both in what is encoded at the time and what is
recalled later. The YerkesDodson inverted-U model of performance and
emotional arousal (Yerkes & Dodson,
1908; see Deffenbacher,
1983) reminds us that high levels of emotion may impair encoding
of any memory, not just traumatic memories.
Many psychiatric disorders are known to be associated with aspects of
memory. People who are depressed tend to have a memory bias for events which
reflect negatively on themselves and the world, more easily forgetting
situations in which they performed well. Anxiety is also associated with an
attentional bias towards threatening situations or facts
(Williams et al,
1997). Both depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
have been shown to be associated with a pattern of overgeneral memory, in
which individuals have difficulty retrieving memories of specific events
(McNally et al, 1995;
Williams, 1995).
Some memories of traumatic experiences are probably qualitatively different
from normal autobiographical memories. An autobiographical memory for a normal
event is verbal, sequenced (having a beginning, middle and end), recognised as
being in the past, and may be recalled voluntarily. Traumatic memories often
include incomplete autobiographical accounts. However, they often also include
perceptual `snapshots' (a smell, the sound of screaming, the image of a face),
which are experienced in the present (reliving experiences) and are often
triggered by external or internal cues (the sound of a firework, a feeling of
guilt) rather than being subject to conscious recall
(Hellawell & Brewin,
2004).
It is understandable that people faced with painful memories like these
will adopt strategies to avoid situations likely to trigger them, for example
meeting others from their country of origin. They may also adopt less
conscious strategies such as `numbed' emotions or dissociative amnesias.
Memory and the asylum process
Despite the long-established body of knowledge about memory, a review of
the literature shows a dearth of articles by psychiatrists and psychologists
for lawyers involved in decisions about those seeking asylum. Perhaps Barnes
(2004) can be forgiven for his
assertion about the lack of a breadth of evidence.
We searched PsycINFO, Medline and PILOTS (the database of the National
Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder;
http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/index.jsp)
with the terms memory AND trauma AND law AND
(refugees OR asylum). Only three papers were identified that
explicitly linked memory functioning to asylum decision-making.
Masinda (2004) analysed a
series of seven negative asylum decisions on refugees exhibiting PTSD,
comparing judicial determinations with clinical and research findings on
memory. Herlihy et al
(2002) interviewed on two
occasions refugees granted asylum as a group by the United Nations and found
inconsistency between their accounts on the two occasions. They found a
relationship between the rate of discrepancies and the nature of the questions
asked. Furthermore, individuals with higher levels of PTSD were more
inconsistent the longer they had to wait between interviews. Morgan et
al (2004) studied over
500 soldiers undergoing `high-stress' interrogation, `modelled from the
experience of actual military personnel who have been prisoners of war'. These
young, fit, trained individuals managed only a 66% recognition rate when
presented with photographs (in identical clothes to improve performance) of
their interrogators.
Other issues are probably also important in this context. For example, from
clinical experience and the research literature, we know that when people feel
shame they find it difficult to disclose personal information. In an interview
with the authorities, however, there are often opposing forces at work. Shame
regarding a brutal rape, for example, is likely to inhibit disclosure of the
event to an official (Van Velsen et
al, 1996), yet disclosure may be essential to gain protection
from the possibility of further brutality.
Claimants' discrepant accounts of their experiences may also be related to
the different triggering of traumatic memories depending on the situation. We
do not know enough about the impact of this on the variability of presentation
in the high-emotion contexts of the court room, the official interview and
clinical assessment.
Some of these questions are being addressed. Steel et al
(2004) used case examples to
illustrate their arguments that mental health issues have an impact on the
fairness of refugee status decisions. A recent study explored the experiences
of 27 asylum seekers of interviews at the UK Home Office and identified the
importance of the behaviour of interviewers as well as the impact of
claimants' feelings of shame and efforts to avoid their memories
(Bögner et al,
2007, this issue).

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Psychiatrists and psychologists practising in this field hold
a wealth of
clinical knowledge which may be relevant to the
legal process of deciding
asylum claims. Legal advisors and
immigration judges sometimes look to medical
experts to help
them to make these very difficult decisions. We need to find
ways of developing the broader evidence base concerning not
only memory and
the asylum process, but also the impact of
traumatic experiences,
cross-cultural assessments, depression,
forced migration, stressful
environments and suicide risk assessments.
We then need to make this evidence
more accessible to decision
makers. If we achieve this, we will have helped to
produce
a more robust system (with fewer false positives as well as
false
negatives), one better able to achieve fair decisions
for all.

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Received for publication December 8, 2006.
Revision received March 8, 2007.
Accepted for publication March 15, 2007.
Related articles in BJP:
- Highlights of this issue
- Sukhwinder S. Shergill
BJP 2007 191: A2.
[Full Text]
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