Beyond Diagnosis: Adding a Psychodynamic Dimension to the Mental Health Asylum Evaluation

Medical-legal asylum evaluations, conducted by experienced clinicians, are one of the most important parts of an application for successfully being granted asylum. Over two-thirds of these are mental health evaluations. Customarily these evaluations are summarized and drafted as diagnostic statements, providing the attorney with clear, corroborative testimony demonstrating that the patient suffers from psychological sequalae directly related to the individual's previous experience of persecution in their home country. However, these medical-legal evaluations are usually devoid of a more holistic description of the asylum seeker. We propose addressing this deficiency, with several redacted examples from affidavits previously used in immigration court.