Just Tell Us What Happened to You: Autobiographical Memory and Seeking Asylum

Abstract

When someone flees their country and seeks the protection of another state, they usually have to describe what happened to make them afraid to return. This task requires many psychological processes, a key one being autobiographical memory. Memory for events of a specific time and place in one's personal past is the subject of a huge literature, much of it showing that recall is vulnerable to distortions and biases. We review selected areas of this literature, shedding light on some of the processes at work when someone seeks to be recognised as a refugee-in particular, the effects of emotion, including emotional disorder. We then turn to the differing types of memory styles seen in different cultures. Crucial to this area, we briefly examine the current literature on deception. Finally, we draw on the reviewed literature to present conclusions about the reliance on autobiographical memories in the asylum process. The asylum processAsylum processes differ across countries, but the basic procedure, as it operates in the West, is the same-offering an account (i.e. making a claim), a first decision (often by the state) and an appeal process. Using the UK as an example, the first step in claiming asylum is to give basic details and an explanation as to how the individual believes

Early life adversities and adolescent antisocial behavior: The role of cardiac autonomic nervous system reactivity in the TRAILS study

“…Moreover, childhood adversities were assessed retrospectively. Memories can be less accurate due to forgetting or re-shaping events, especially those related to traumatic and stressful events (Deffenbacher, Bornstein, Penrod, & McGorty, 2004;Herlihy, Jobson, & Turner, 2012). Our study may have suffered from recall biases given the long period of time that could have passed between the actual adverse event and administering the questionnaire at age 11.…”

The importance of looking credible: the impact of the behavioural sequelae of post-traumatic stress disorder on the credibility of asylum seekers

“…This is an important consideration as asylum seekers with a genuine claim who have been trafficked, and may still be beholden to their traffickers for their or their families' safety, may be under coercion to lie about aspects of their journey and their current circumstances (Herlihy, Jobson, & Turner, 2012;UKBA, 2013).…”

The texture of narrative dilemmas: qualitative study in front-line professionals working with asylum seekers in the UK

“…Participants mentioned additional factors that contributed to narrative dilemmas experienced by the asylum seekers they worked with, which were in line with previous studies on the influence of the interview environment, including physical features of the room, the gender of the interviewer and the role of interpreters, as well as interviewer expectations of emotional congruence from asylum seekers. 9,[16][17][18][19][20][21] However, as our study focused on professionals' perceptions of the decision-making processes that drove some asylum seekers' disclosures, we chose to focus on types of dilemmas and their relationship with asylum seekers' traumatic past experiences.…”