Exploration of Psychological Effects Arising from Migration Processes
Immigrants often experience a unique form of grief during migration, as they lose not only their homes and communities but also their culture, language, and social status. This complex grief can lead to feelings of loneliness, frustration, identity loss, and profound psychological distress such as anxiety, depression, and social isolation.
The migration process is similar to a journey through the stages of grief. In the pre-migration phase, trauma related to violence, loss, separation from family, and uncertainty can already cause psychological distress. The migration/transit phase is marked by fear, stress, uncertainty, and loss of control, leading to acute distress and physical symptoms like irritability and tiredness. In the post-migration phase, immigrants mourn the loss of their home environment, social networks, and familiar cultural frameworks, often feeling profound loneliness, social isolation, and longing for their homeland.
The grief experienced by immigrants can be viewed in stages similar to general grief models but specific to the migration context. The loss of companion animals, who serve as emotional supports during the migration journey, can also contribute to hidden grief.
Understanding migratory grief as involving both practical losses (family, language, culture) and internal identity loss is essential for addressing migrants’ mental health needs. Therapeutic interventions often focus on helping migrants reconstruct identity and find belonging in the new cultural context, thereby mitigating prolonged grief and distress.
Dealing with migration stages involves talking about feelings and accepting them. A reliable figure, such as other immigrants or a community, can help neutralize anxieties and fears of the new. Insecurity felt by immigrants is determined by uncertainty, anxieties, and the inevitable regression they entail.
Migration is often a change of residence from one place to another, intensified recently due to political, economic, social, or environmental problems. It can cause persecutory feelings if psychological pain is not tolerated as depressive suffering. Hypochondriacal symptoms and somatizations may appear when someone very important to the person departs.
The pain of separation can be experienced maniacally with feelings of guilt, but also with a sense of success. Migration is like a death and goes through the same stages as mourning. The process of migratory grief is similar to the process of mourning for the death of someone ambivalently loved or a place or home.
Immigrants may also experience two types of guilt: persecutory guilt, which can lead to somatizations, melancholy, and psychosis, and depressive guilt, which allows for the correct elaboration of grief. They may feel guilt for leaving family and friends behind in their place of origin, while those who remain may experience feelings of abandonment and anger towards the migrant.
Understanding and addressing these psychological effects are crucial for supporting immigrants during their journey of migration and integration. By acknowledging the complexities of migratory grief and offering appropriate support, we can help migrants navigate their new environments and build fulfilling lives in their new homes.
- The complex grief experienced by immigrants during migration, which includes loss of culture, language, and social status, can lead to profound psychological distress such as anxiety, depression, and social isolation.
- Understanding migratory grief as involving both practical losses (family, language, culture) and internal identity loss is essential for addressing migrants’ mental health needs.
- Dealing with migration stages involves talking about feelings and accepting them, and a reliable figure, such as other immigrants or a community, can help neutralize anxieties and fears of the new.
- Migration is like a death and goes through the same stages as mourning, including feelings of guilt, success, and ambivalence towards the new and the old.
- Understanding and addressing these psychological effects are crucial for supporting immigrants during their journey of migration and integration, by acknowledging the complexities of migratory grief and offering appropriate support, we can help migrants navigate their new environments and build fulfilling lives in their new homes.
