New Reading on Migrant Mental Health: The Migrant Art of Coping 

The Migrant Art of Coping by Sohail Jannesari felt like a journey. It is thoughtfully articulated, beautifully written, and stands as a leading contribution to how we understand migrant mental health. It offers a nuanced account of what migrant lived experience means from a mental health perspective, and I recommend it wholeheartedly, for the following five reasons.  

Reason 1: It is grounded in lived experience, not observation 

This book does not aim to be a spectator of the migrant mental health phenomenon. Instead, it writes from a place of understanding and curiosity, centring realities of what it really means to seek sanctuary and to sadly lose your sense of self in the process. It asks how constant questioning impacts mental health: the demand to recount trauma, to prove and re-prove who you are, as the daily reality of seeking sanctuary.

The book explores how these demands shape mental health. It centres people’s own lived experience of safety-seeking and mental health, not an outsider’s interpretation of them.

Reason 2: It shows how support systems fail people who need them most 

The book offers a different perspective from the one told by support systems. One that many sanctuary seekers will recognise. It asks a hard question, whether to state, charity, or otherwise: does it have to be this way? A system designed around monitoring and reporting, rather than around the services and support people actually need, is not a healthy one.

One story in the book, of the author supporting a community member navigating the housing system after a negative asylum decision, resonated deeply with my own professional experience of supporting people through the UK’s support systems. The long queues, the endless questions, the heavy administrative demands, and, at the end of it all, the same fixed answer – sorry, we cannot support you, please seek help elsewhere. 

The book examines how support in the UK has drifted from a genuine safety net into form-filling, long queues and complicated pathways, assuming a level of literacy and information many people simply do not have. Jannesari’s argument is that it doesn’t have to be this way, and that support systems could be built differently: centred on protecting rather than eroding people’s mental health. The book makes the case that support systems need not be traumatising – they can improve mental health rather than damage it. 

Reason 3: It draws on humanitarian theories, learnings and criticisms, centring lived experience in how support systems are built 

The book follows a person’s journey, from refugee camps and forced displacement, through transit, to sanctuary-seeking and eventual settlement. Along the way, it traces acts of solidarity and support, building a case for systems that work with lived experience rather than dismissing or merely observing it.

Jannesari examines how support systems can be unfortunately shaped by the people who deliver them rather than by the people they are meant to serve. This is a reflective challenge to NGOs about how much lived experience genuinely shapes their ways of working, and the book offers real examples of more effective, co-created approaches to mental health support for migrants and sanctuary seekers. 

I think this is one of the most valuable contributions of the book for charities and support services: a serious critique of the assumption that professionals already know what is right for the people they serve. It is well worth engaging with for any charity, NGO, or state body working with people navigating the border regime. 

Reason 4: It is a call to decolonise migrant mental health spaces 

The book steps beyond the Eurocentric model that dominates mental health support, and makes space for holistic approaches instead. The author explores how migrants and people on the move carry their own depths of self-understanding, and how different ways of expressing feeling and experience can shape far more effective support. Drawing on community-based approaches to healing and coping from across the world; from the highlands of Brazil to the countryside of Southern and Western Africa, to experiences in India and across the Arab and Persian world. People bring their own wealth of knowledge.

The book is a call to every mental health practitioner, researcher, clinician and service provider to interrogate the frameworks they use to build and run their services, and to embrace a far more diverse understanding of mental health, particularly for migrant communities. 

Reason 5: It is written to be lived with, not just read 

The book is designed to be interactive. It draws you into the author’s own perspective in a way that is genuinely immersive, allowing you to understand their point of view from within, rather than as an outside observer. The writing itself is vivid and persuasive throughout. 

The book makes the everyday world a site of coping: art, creativity, migrant imagination, and the small joys found in ordinary spaces. For someone living through a difficult experience, it offers a genuinely useful perspective on self-care, showing how simply making space within one’s daily reality can be immensely helpful for mental health. This is what makes the book, in my view, such a comprehensive contribution to a new vision for migrant mental health. 

The Migrant Art of Coping sits at the intersection of migration, anti-racism, decolonisation and mental health. It centres lived experience voices of throughout, illustrating migrant and sanctuary-seeking communities as they adapt, endure and rebuild. The book does not shy away from difficult and sorrowful stories, but it remains, in my view, a leading account of migrant mental health for our current moment and for the services we build today. I highly recommend reading it. 

Jannesari also facilitated the creation of our migrant mental health guide, It’s Okay Not To Be Okay. Co-produced with our National Health Advisors (NHAs), Doctors of the World UK and Thrive LDN, the guide offers accessible, practical support for anyone experiencing emotional strain linked to migration and displacement. The authors used workshops, led by Doctors of the World UK, to ensure the guide reflects real struggles and strengths, bringing together the collective care and the wisdom found in cultural traditions.