"Concerns continue to be raised worldwide about the psychological impact of torture and other types of systemic abuse. Few controlled studies have investigated psychological distress resulting from torture and other systemic abuse or from the asylum seeking processes itself. No study has taken into account the impact of systemic abuse on the subjective „self view?. By contrast, this thesis compares the degree of psychological distress, and „self views? between three groups: survivors of torture, survivors of other types of systemic abuse, and a control group who experienced neither. It was expected that torture survivors would present with higher levels of psychiatric symptoms and greater negative self views compared to the other two groups. Similarly, it was predicted that survivors of other types of systemic abuse would present with higher levels of psychiatric symptoms and greater negative „self views? compared to the control group. A further question concerns residential status, that is, whether asylum seekers in detention have higher levels of distress and changes in „self-view? compared to asylum seekers living in the community and those with permanent residency who never experienced the asylum seeking process. It was expected that asylum seekers in detention would present more negatively compared to asylum seekers in the community. It was also expected that asylum seekers in the community would present with greater psychiatric symptoms and negative „self views? than permanent residents."