The psychological aspects in the approaches of migration generally remain in the background of newsletters, statistics, and chaos discourses. The migrants’ mental accommodation is likely to be limited to the private sphere when migration is in question. Nevertheless, it is obvious that in all conditions, changing the environment for living and adapting to a new place have psychological consequences. Apart from the consultation process of the traumas by the psychologists, societal patterns of these consequences are examined as a subject of social psychology. It is crucial to reconsider the socio-psychological level in any migratory actions since they actually affect the macro-level (i.e. state policy) adjustments too.
Psychoanalyst Salmon Akhtar suggests that the personal effects of migration start with the person-place binary concept. Once the place is changed, people tend to be more concerned about it, and the awareness of “current residence” raises. For example, a Turkish person would not focus on her daily life with the idea of “living in Turkey” as much until she moves out of her country. If she moves to England, her whole life has concerns about “living in England”. After the environmental change, every single aspect in the migrants’ life is something new to arouse emotions such as hopes, excitement, anxiety, feeling of inclusion/exclusion, and so on.
Canadian social psychologist Kay Deaux suggests that migration as a concept is not limited only to the moving (or decision making) period, but it continues after settling into a new place. In any case of migration, there are adaptation-related concerns in the daily life of a migrant. Leaving home, being on the road, official procedures, and settling down can be tiresome processes that might create mental damages. Homesickness is the first condition that comes to mind in this regard. Apart from it, some academics parallelize the migration process with “grief” since it also comes with the concept of “longing”. For a migrant, it is never obvious to have a “home” again as it was in their homeland. In some ways, the concept of home “dies” and it becomes something that the migrant misses for an unknown period.
It should not be neglected that the motivation and the reason for a migratory move matter, considering its psychological effects. Being forced to change the settlement such as in the case of refugees and asylum seekers surely creates more traumatic experiences. Having limited time to be prepared for the road, lacking in social and beuroractic support, or socially hostile destinations could lead to the first period of disappointment.
Salmon Akhtar mentions that leaving the familiar place and personal belongings can create serious psychological deprivation. Change of environment and its mental effects explained by the childhood connections and connotations. The babies tend to create their sense of security by the most familiar member of their surroundings (in most cases it is their mother). Their first emotional contact becomes their reference for their security and then it becomes the connection point to the outer world. When leaving all the familiar figures behind, there is a need to adapt to the new ones, which awhile lacks the sense of security. In the beginning, the new place could attract the person with all the excitement and curiosity. However, in a short while, the migrant would face all the new concepts and/or challenges that should be figured out to maintain the adaption.
The deprivation in the migratory process not only comes into view by longing for acquaintances or environment, but it also comes with leaving personal belongings or objects that have a meaning in a migrants’ life. If the migratory process is voluntary, this issue might be minimized in the time of the preparation. However, in the forced migration cases, people have to leave their belongings behind, which creates loss and damage in both financial and emotional matters. Even in the cases of planned migration, obtaining new belongings that arousing feelings for the person would take an extended period of time. Moreover, it is never even guaranteed that something similar to the previous emotional repertoire will be gathered in the new place. (and this idea might trigger anxiety). Akhtar asserts that these derivations can unveil some level of “narcissistic disorder” due to the possible damages in the connection to one’s individuality. In other words, especially the sudden changes in the environmental and material world create distances with the authentic self and adjusting this process in a negative or positive way depends on the unique condition of a particular subject.
The socio-psychological adaptation process of a migrant in a new place should not be conceived as only migrants’ burden. It is important to improve the practices on social-psychology in case of migration because a constructive interaction between the host and the newcomer has a crucial importance on both personal and societal development. Preliminarily, to have a correct mindset in such interactions, the hosting part should consider how much effort a migrant already put to be in a new place, and how much they need a positive social attitude to overcome their deprivations. Once an interactive empathy is provided there would be more possibilities to witness positive migrant experiences.
