Biographical Evaluation of Psychosocial Treatment in Psychiatric Clinics and Counseling Centers By Service Users

Inequalities in psychosocial care particularly affect migrant women and men. To find out about inadequate service but also possible examples of good practice in psychiatric clinics and counseling centers, service users who migrated themselves or grew up in a family context of migration are asked in narrative interviews how they experience and evaluate their treatment or counseling. Together with my students in Social Work, we are currently conducting this research as a pilot study in three locations, two psychiatric clinics and one counseling center. What is quite unusual about this research is that it was planned in cooperation with the psychosocial care providers at the clinics and counseling centers. Our cooperation in the “Intercultural Forum” in Frankfurt am Main (Germany) began in May 2010 with the aim of improving psychosocial services for migrants, for example, by introducing institutional changes and by offering treatment/counseling in the languages of migrants. Our previous research in the framework of the Forum consisted of biographical narrative interviews with psychosocial health care professionals. In the present pilot study migrant patients/clients at the three locations are asked how they experience and evaluate their treatment or counseling. In my paper, I would focus on the analysis of these interviews as well as on the research cooperation in the context of the Forum.