The term protracted asylum seeker syndrome has recently been established by Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists’ Congress in Hobart (2012) however the term has yet to appear in psychological literature. A large number of studies have found that asylum seekers in detention centres are more susceptible to mental health issues such as depression and Post Traumatic Syndrome Disorder (PTSD) (Robjan, Hassan, & Katona, 2009) and the extent of their mental ill health is correlated with the length of time spent in detention (Sultan & O’Sullivan, 2001). Snowball sampling was used to recruit participants (Berg, 1988). Semi-structured interviews were used to explore the meaning and consequences of detention and post-detention experience (Teijlingen, 2014). Interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) was used for the purpose of data analysis. All ten participants revealed symptoms of protracted asylum seeker syndrome to different degrees with all participants experiencing a minimum of two symptoms each. The existence of protracted asylum seeker syndrome is supported in the given sample and supports the concerns voiced by humanitarian organisations (HREOC, 2006) regarding the harmful effects of detention centres.