PhD Defence of José Muller

The integration of refugees in host countries is not easy. There are many institutional hurdles to be overcome. There are many reasons to try to change these institutional hurdles and to create more humane policies to integrate refugees. This is of all ages and all places. Another strategy is to empower the refugees to deal with these hurdles, and to deal with all the effects these procedures have on the mental health of the refugees. One well-documented effective way to empowerment is a positive psychological attitude. However, this is a typical Western concept and one can question if this is also applicable to people from other cultural realms. Building on these ideas José Muller developed a unique new culturally sensitive intervention called MOSAIC for specifically Syrian refugees in the Netherlands, and evaluated its effects in a large field experiment allowing the refugees to develop such a positive psychological attitude. This project was a truly multidisciplinary project in which psychiatrists intensely cooperated with geographers as well as with those responsible for municipal refugee policies. This was in many respects, e.g. institutionally, culturally, and linguistically a real challenge, which José horicly mastered. She was supervised by Prof. Huib Ernste, Prof. Mario Braakman as well as Dr. Pascal Beckers

On Monday, February 26, 2024, José Muller successfully defended her PhD thesis with the title:

Unlocking the Potential of Refugees:
An intervention to foster the mental health, economic participation and social networks of Syrian refugees in the Netherlands

If you click on the title image, you can download the full thesis.

The back cover text summarises the results: The number of people worldwide who were forced to flee their homes is unprecedently high. The European Union, including the Netherlands, is an important destination for refugees. The need to facilitate the newcomers in building up their new lives in receiving societies is therefore high.

Within these receiving societies, the labour market outcomes of refugees generally lag behind those of other migrant groups and autochthones. Research shows that mental health is an important predictor in explaining this gap. Refugees frequently experience mental health problems, which hinder their chances of having paid employment. However, in the integration trajectories offered by Dutch municipalities, there is little attention to the mental health of refugees.

To fill this gap, a new intervention “Mosaic” was developed and implemented in six municipalities in the Netherlands. The intervention was developed in close collaboration with the target group -Syrian refugees- and relevant regional stakeholders. The intervention is based on positive psychology, making it the first positive psychology intervention for refugees. The aim of the intervention is to help Syrian refugees building up their new lives in the Netherlands and to help them improve their mental health, economic participation and social networks. During the implementation of the intervention, data was collected to evaluate the effect of the intervention.

This book describes the development of the intervention and the results of the effectiveness research. This book adds to the literature on positive psychology, (the development of) culturally sensitive mental health care and refugee integration. It is therefore useful for scholars, practitioners and policymakers working on these topics.

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