Torture victims find comfort in US health clinic

Available for over a year

In Cambodia in the 1970s, officials of the communist Khmer Rouge regime orchestrated mass executions of those it thought might oppose its rule. As a result, people there learned to fear men in suits -- or at least anyone who looked official. And when they came to the US as refugees, they brought those fears with them. But what happened when they needed to do things like see a doctor? One clinic in the Massachusetts city of Lowell had to deal with that issue when thousands of Cambodians arrived there in the 1980s. Image: Women gather to meditate at the Metta Health Centre in the Massachusetts city of Lowell. Many of the patients seek meditation, and other traditional forms of Cambodian healing, to deal with headaches, insomnia, and other symptoms of PTSD. Credit: Heidi Shin