Immigration in Psychoanalysis: Locating Ourselves presents a unique approach to understanding the varied and multi-layered experience of immigration, exploring how social, cultural, political, and historical contexts shape the psychological experience of immigration, and with it the encounter between foreign-born patients and their psychotherapists. Beltsiou brings together a diverse group of contributors, including Ghislaine Boulanger, Eva Hoffman and Dori Laub, to discuss their own identity as immigrants and how it informs their work. They explore the complexity and the contradictions of the immigration process - the tension between loss and hope, future and past, the idealization and denigration of the other/stranger, and what it takes to tolerate the existential dialectic between separateness and belonging. Through personal accounts full of wisdom and nuance, the stories of immigration come to life and become accessible to the reader. Intended for clinicians, students, and academics interested in contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives on the topic of immigration, this book serves as a resource for clinical practice and can be read in courses on psychoanalysis, cultural psychology, immigrant studies, race and ethnic relations, self and identity, culture and human development, and immigrants and mental health.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of psychoanalytic work with immigrant mothers, fathers, and their children, combining clinical examples and contemporary research to explore ways in which psychoanalysts can work and shape appropriate therapeutic settings. Written by an international range of contributors, from Europe, the US, and the Middle East, the chapters examine how psychoanalysts, especially when they too are immigrants, can best support those in a transcultural situation against the backdrop of increasing migration from conflict, persecution, war, or poverty. They share a clinical and societal commitment. While showing how the existing literature on immigration focuses rightly on traumatic elements, the chapters in this text also demonstrate how creativity must be considered while shaping a psychoanalytic perspective. The text brings together case material and research to illuminate how the therapeutic and theoretical processes of psychoanalysis, at times combining anthropology and sociology, can lead to the construction of new therapeutic settings mostly for non-Western families in contexts of higher psychopathological risks: neo-natal period, international adoption, and social isolation. Written in a practical, accessible style, Parenthood and Immigration in Psychoanalysis is essential reading for practicing psychoanalysts, paediatricians, psychotherapists, and counsellors, as well as researchers and clinicians in a range of fields, including perinatal, sociology, cultural studies, and social work.

In this book Drs. Lesn and Rebeca Grinberg provide the first psychoanalytic study of both normal and pathological reactions to migration and to the special case of exile. Drawing on rich clinical material, on literature, and on myth, the Grinbergs discuss the relationship between migration and the language and age of the traveler; they consider its effects on the migrant's sense of identity; and they draw insightful analogies between the migratory experience and human development.

Immigration from one country to another is a complex psychological process with significant and lasting effects on an individual's identity. Even under the best circumstances, immigration is a traumatic occurence; like other traumas, it mobilizes a mourning process. It also offers renewed opportunity for psychic growth and alteration, and the mourning-liberation process transforms the immigrant's identity. In this book, this progression is highlighted along the dimensions of drives and affects, interpersonal and psychic space, temporality, and social affiliation. As the topics of identity and immigration are brought together in a deep and meaningful way, their clinical assessment and relevance are presented. Detailed guidelines are offered for conducting psychotherapy with immigrant patients, including child and family interventions. The specific dilemmas of the immigrant therapist are also explored, including linguistic differences, maintaining cultural neutrality and transference-countertransference issues.

Aside from the many political, cultural and economic aspects of the present refugee crisis in Europe, it is also crucial to consider the psychological element. In our fast-changing world, globalisation, advances in communication technology, fast travel, terrorism and now the refugee crisis make psychoanalytic investigation of the Other a major necessity. Psychoanalyst Vamik Volkan, who left Cyprus for the US as a young man, brings his own experiences as an immigrant to bear on this study of the psychology of immigrants and refugees, and of those who cross paths with them. In Part 1, case examples illustrate the impact of traumatic experiences, group identity issues, and how traumas embedded in the experience of immigrants and refugees can be passed down from one generation to the next. Part 2 focuses on the host countries, considering the evolution of prejudice and how fear of newcomers can affect everything from international politics to the way we behave as individuals. Volkan also considers the psychology of borders, from the Berlin Wall to Donald Trump.

Forced Migration and Social Trauma addresses the topic of social trauma and migration by bringing together a broad range of interdisciplinary and international contributors, comprising refugee care practitioners, trauma researchers, sociologists and specialists in public policy from all along the Balkan refugee route into Europe. It gives the essence of a moderated dialogue between psychologists and psychoanalysts, sociologists, public policy and refugee care experts. Migration is connected to social trauma and cannot be handled without being aware of this context. The way refugees are treated in the transit or target countries is often determined by the socio-traumatic history of these countries. Social trauma can be collectively committed and perpetuated, leaving transgenerational traces in posttraumatic and attachment disorders, uprootedness and loss of social and political confidence. Media and cultural artefacts like press, TV and the internet influence collective coping as well as traumatic perpetuation. This book shows how xenophobia in the refugee receiving or transit countries can be caused by projection rather than by experience, and that the way refugees are received and regarded in a country may be connected to the country’s cultural‐traumatic history. Refugees, who are often individually and collectively traumatised, experience multiple re-enactments; however, such retraumatisations between refugees and receiving populations or institutions often remain unaddressed. The split between welcoming and hostile attitudes sometimes leads to unconscious institutional defences, such as lack of cooperation between medical, psychotherapeutic, humanitarian and legal institutions. An interdisciplinary and international exchange on migration and social trauma is necessary on all levels – this book gives convincing examples of this dialogue. Forced Migration and Social Trauma will be of great interest to all who are involved in the modern issues of refuge and migration.

This book provides clinical strategies for working with immigrant and ethnically diverse patients and their offspring while drawing observations from the humanities to reveal truths about the psychological impact of immigration. Each aspect of the life of an immigrant is explored, shedding light on the complexities of work, friendship, sex, marriage, aging, religion, and politics.