Diagnosing Mental Illness

Abstract

To leave home and go to live in another place is never a light undertaking, especially if the distance is great and the move a long-term one. Migration is inevitably accompanied by emotional stress. There is grief at parting. The journey may be full of new experiences, some exciting, others frightening and intense if life hitherto has been confined within local horizons. There may be helplessness induced by a strange language, the fear of misunderstanding or being misunderstood, changes of climate and diet, being physically distinctive, feeling unwelcome, experiencing social isolation and dependence on strangers. In addition to these common stresses, more specific anxieties affect particular groups. The refugee who leaves a homeland torn by violence may carry a burden of grief or uncertainty about the fates of family and friends, perhaps tinged with guilt. The displaced person may be exposed to the initiative-sapping institutionalisation of a transit camp. The migrant worker, forced by poverty to seek his fortune abroad, may have good reason to worry about the conditions in which he has left his family. The young man who sets out boldly for Eldorado may require instant success to justify his decision (and repay the debts he has incurred). A bride may be joining a husband she hardly knows, but on whom she will be utterly dependent.

Based on a lecture delivered to the Leeds Regional Psychiatric Assoctation in February 1976 and reproduced by permission of the Association.