Moving from one country to another causes a radical alteration of one's cultural and geophysical surround. Separation from friends and family, loss of valued possessions, and encountering new ways of living result in mental pain and disorienting anxieties. In Immigration and Acculturation, Salman Akhtar examines the traumatic impact of immigration and the acculturation process and the psychological defenses that are mobilized in the immigrant, including nostalgia and fantasies of return. Akhtar explores each aspect of an immigrant's life, shedding light on the complexities of work, friendship, sex, marriage, aging, religion, and politics, as well as showing how unresolved conflicts are passed on to the next generation. Akhtar provides first-hand accounts from immigrants from a variety of backgrounds and countries of origin, and he provides clinical strategies for working with immigrant and ethnically diverse patients and their offspring. Deftly synthesizing observations from psychoanalysis, anthropology, literature, history, and related disciplines in the humanities, Salman Akhtar elegantly elucidates postmigration identity change.
In their later years, Americans of different racial and ethnic backgrounds are not in equally good-or equally poor-health. There is wide variation, but on average older Whites are healthier than older Blacks and tend to outlive them. But Whites tend to be in poorer health than Hispanics and Asian Americans. This volume documents the differentials and considers possible explanations. Selection processes play a role: selective migration, for instance, or selective survival to advanced ages. Health differentials originate early in life, possibly even before birth, and are affected by events and experiences throughout the life course. Differences in socioeconomic status, risk behavior, social relations, and health care all play a role. Separate chapters consider the contribution of such factors and the biopsychosocial mechanisms that link them to health. This volume provides the empirical evidence for the research agenda provided in the separate report of the Panel on Race, Ethnicity, and Health in Later Life.
Migrant psychiatry is an evolving subdiscipline within cultural psychiatry that deals with the impact of migration on the mental health of those who have migrated and those who work with these groups and provide services to them. Stress related to migration affects migrants and their extended families either directly or indirectly. The process of migration is not just a phase, but leads on to a series of adjustments, including acculturation, which may occur across generations. Factors such as changes in diet, attitudes and beliefs, and overall adjustment are important in settling down and making the individuals feel secure. This period of adjustment will depend upon the individual migrant's pre-migration experiences, migration process and post-migration experiences, but also upon an individual's personality, social support and emotional response to migration. Socio-demographic factors, such as age, gender, educational, and economic status will all play a role in post-migration adjustment. In order to understand the impact on individuals, not only the type of migration and different stressors, but also the types of psychological mechanisms at a personal level and the resources and processes at a societal level need to be explored. Despite the number of refugees and asylum seekers around the world increasing at an astonishing rate, the mental health needs of migrants are often ignored by policy makers and clinicians. The Oxford Textbook of Migrant Psychiatry is designed to serve as the comprehensive reference resource on the mental health of migrants, bringing together both theoretical and practical aspects of the mental health needs of refugees and asylum seekers for researchers and professionals. Individual chapters summarise theoretical constructs related to theories of migration, the impact of migration on mental health and adjustment, collective trauma, individual identity and diagnostic fallacies. The book also covers the practical aspects of patient management including cultural factors, ethnopsychopharmacology, therapeutic interaction and therapeutic expectation, and psychotherapy. Finally, the book will examine special clinical problems and special patient groups. Part of the authoritative Oxford Textbooks in Psychiatry series, this resource will serve as an essential reference for psychiatrists, mental health professionals, general practitioners/primary care physicians, social workers, policy makers and voluntary agencies dealing with refugees and asylum seekers.
An exploration of questions of nationality in Brazil and Argentina, at the time when the cities were flooded with impoverished European immigrants. The author argues that processes of representation and identity formation between national and immigrant groups have to be examined within the historical context of the host nations.
This book outlines the various psychosocial impacts of immigration on cultural identity and its impact on mainstream culture. It examines how cultural identity fits into individual mental health and has to be taken into account in treatment.
In recent years the topic of acculturation has evolved from a relatively minor research area to one of the most researched subjects in the field of cross-cultural psychology. This edited handbook compiles and systemizes the current state of the art by exploring the broad international scope of acculturation. A collection of the world's leading experts in the field review the various contexts for acculturation, the central theories, the groups and individuals undergoing acculturation (immigrants, refugees, indigenous people, expatriates, students and tourists) and discuss how current knowledge can be applied to make both the process and its outcome more manageable and profitable. Building on the theoretical and methodological framework of cross-cultural psychology, the authors focus specifically on the issues that arise when people from one culture move to another culture and the reciprocal adjustments, tensions and benefits involved.
This richly detailed reference offers a strengths-based survey of Latinx immigrant experience in the United States. Spanning eleven countries across the Americas and the Caribbean, the book uses a psychohistorical approach using the words of immigrants at different processes and stages of acculturation and acceptance. Coverage emphasizes the sociopolitical contexts, particularly in relation to the US, that typically lead to immigration, the vital role of the Spanish language and cultural values, and the journey of identity as it evolves throughout the creation of a new life in a new and sometimes hostile country. This vivid material is especially useful to therapists working with Latinx clients reconciling current and past experience, coping with prejudice and other ongoing challenges, or dealing with trauma and loss. Included among the topics: · Argentines in the U.S.: migration and continuity. · Chilean Americans: a micro cultural Latinx group. · Cuban Americans: freedom, hope, endurance, and the American Dream. · The drums are calling: race, nation, and the complex history of Dominicans. · The Obstacle is the Way: resilience in the lives of Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S. · Cultura y familia: strengthening Mexican heritage families. · Puerto Ricans on the U.S. mainland. With its multiple layers of lived experience and historical analysis, Latinx Immigrant, is inspiring and powerful reading for sociologists, economists, mental health educators and practitioners, and healthcare providers.
The growing importance of immigration in the United States today prompted this examination of the adequacy of U.S. immigration data. This volume summarizes data needs in four areas: immigration trends, assimilation and impacts, labor force issues, and family and social networks. It includes recommendations on additional sources for the data needed for program and research purposes, and new questions and refinements of questions within existing data sources to improve the understanding of immigration and immigrant trends.
This book, by Sonja Zmerli and Marc Hooghe, presents cutting-edge empirical research on political trust as a relational concept. From a European comparative perspective it addresses a broad range of contested issues. Can political trust be conceived as a one-dimensional concept and to what extent do international population surveys warrant the culturally equivalent measurement of political trust across European societies? Is there indeed an observable general trend of declining levels of political trust? What are the individual, societal and political prerequisites of political trust and how do they translate into trustful attitudes? Why do so many Eastern European citizens still distrust their political institutions and how does the implementation of welfare state policies both enhance and benefit from political trust? The comprehensive empirical evidence presented in this book by leading scholars provides valuable insights into the relational aspects of political trust and will certainly stimulate future research. This book features: a state-of-the-art European perspective on political trust; an analysis of the most recent trends with regard to the development of political trust; a comparison of traditional and emerging democracies in Europe; the consequences of political trust on political stability and the welfare state; a counterbalance to the gloomy American picture of declining political trust levels.
