Migration and growth: separation-individuation processes in immigrant students in Israel

The central experiences of immigrant students in Israel are described and analyzed. It is suggested that immigration entails a process of separation from homeland as well as from internal representations of objects and of the self which are linked to homeland. This process is conceptualized in terms of Margaret Mahler's separation-individuation model. In the case of immigrant students, this process occurs concurrently and in interaction with individuation processes typical of adolescence. While motivated by adolescents' desire to avoid or delay psychological separation from their parents, immigration and absorption also revive adolescent conflicts and ambivalences. When the working through of these conflicts occurs in conjunction with the absorption process, immigration may become a growth experience that facilitates the developmental task of adolescence.     

The impact of social experience on neurobiological systems: illustration from a constructivist view of child maltreatment

In this article, I highlight the discipline of developmental psychopathology as an integrative framework that builds upon the historical underpinnings of a constructivist perspective. After presenting illustrative developmental psychopathology principles that I consider to be central to a constructivist view, I turn my attention to the role of experience on brain development. This serves as the entree into a discussion of research conducted with maltreated children on brain event-related potentials (ERPs) and the cognitive processing of emotional stimuli, neuroendocrine functioning, and acoustic startle. Each of these components of brain functioning serve to underscore how different neurobiological systems reflect the way in which individuals ascribe meaning to traumatic experiences. Research on child maltreatment, an “experiment of nature,” reveals that maltreated children actively construct their reality at both the biological and psychological levels of analysis, at least in part based on the meaning these children impute to their caregiving experiences.     

Asian Indian Women: Domestic Violence,Mental Health,and Sites of Resilience

ABSTRACT

Culture is foundational to human experiences. As such, different cultural contexts and systems create different realities and lived experiences. Psychological knowledge and experiences within this context are then subject to socio-cultural systems, historical events, the distribution of economic and political power, and privileged positions of people within the system. This article highlights Asian Indian women’s lived experiences with domestic violence and their ways of healing. In particular, we present personal, political, social, and cultural factors that contribute to vulnerability and resilience in Indian women both in India and within the diaspora and note the role of community as an important indigenous source of healing.     

Immigration Law and Its Impact on the Family: What Group Therapists Need to Know

ABSTRACT

This article provides an overview of structural limitations and challenges imposed by U.S. immigration law and enforcement policies and how they specifically impact families. Our analysis draws from numerous years of experience practicing immigration law and analysis of social and legal factors that impact immigrant individuals and families. We provide historical context for the Trump administration policies that have generated so much debate, reviewing how U.S. immigration creates barriers to family unity and stress on immigrant individuals and families, and explaining how the current administration has exacerbated these problems. We aim to help group psychotherapists gain greater awareness of their immigrant patients’ experiences through an analysis of immigration law and the use of case studies.     

Evidence for a sensitive period for acculturation: younger immigrants report acculturating at a faster rate

Though recent adult immigrants often seem less acculturated to their new society than people who immigrated as children, it is not clear whether this difference is driven by duration of exposure or exposure during a sensitive developmental period. In a study aimed at disambiguating these influences, community and student samples of Hong Kong immigrants to Vancouver, Canada, completed the Vancouver Index of Acculturation, a measure that assesses respondents' identification with their mainstream and heritage cultures. A longer duration of exposure was found to be associated with greater identification with Canadian culture only at younger ages of immigration, but not at later ages of immigration. Conversely, identification with Chinese culture was unaffected by either age of immigration or length of exposure to Canadian culture. These findings provide evidence for a sensitive period for acculturation: People are better able to identify with a host culture the longer their exposure to it, but only if this exposure occurs when they are relatively young.     

A Bourdieuian Analysis of Job Search Experiences of Immigrants in Canada

Drawing on qualitative interviews, this paper examines the labour market integration experiences of immigrants from Turkey to Canada. Analysis is framed in the context of Bourdieu’s theoretical framework in order to understand the ways in which members of certain immigrant groups follow varied integration trajectories. This paper contributes to the literature by first focusing on the experiences of immigrants who arrived with varied levels of education and under different immigration classes, settling in diverse segments of the labour market and, second, by exploring strategies developed to deal with job search challenges. The findings show that capital and habitus travelled with participants from Turkey and that the intersection of their immigration status with the set of written and unwritten rules of the Canadian labour market and its subfields (both professional and non-professional) shaped their integration experiences.     

Sikh historical memory as an ideological justification for Khalistan

The Khalistan movement was an armed secessionist struggle carried out by the Sikhs of Punjab, northern India, which spanned the period between 1981 and 1993. In parallel with other such insurgencies around the world, it is evident that the Khalistan movement had a strong ideological underpinning which not only helped to fuel its rise, but also helped to sustain it throughout its tenure. In this regard, the reference point for ideological justification was very much the past experiences and episodes of the Sikh community, or, to be precise, their ‘historical memory’ of these. This article focuses its attention on identifying, describing and interrogating the strength of the ideological justifications that were extracted from Sikh historical memory in support of Khalistan.     

MIDLIFE WOMEN'S POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS Case Studies of Psychosocial Development and Political Commitment

Midlife women's political consciousness may be importantly influenced by a preoccupation with generativity. Analysis of three case studies suggests the importance of several elements for a developmental perspective on women's (and perhaps men's) midlife political activity: childhood family political ideology; earlier adolescent and adult political activity; influences of particular social and historical events at different developmental stages; a desire to be generative or to "make a contribution"; experiences as a parent; and access at midlife to time, energy, and personal resources. In addition, the importance of defining "political activity" broadly, and in the terms meaningful to women themselves, is underlined. finally, the satisfaction associated with recognizing the continuity in one's life commitments must be appreciated as one element of women's midlife political consciousness.     

The Analytic Encounter,a Scene of Clashing Cultures

Three wars (WWII, the Vietnam War and the Iraq War) as well as the experience of immigration impacted on the analytic situation as described in this paper. A first generation immigrant patient, who was also a Vietnam veteran, and the immigrant analyst came together in harmony and in discord, around the issues of their common experiences of war and being an immigrant. The onset of the Iraq war brought these issues into a sharp focus in the mid-phase of an on-going analysis. The paper explores how countertransferential experiences of war and immigration were used to further analytic work. It is often assumed that analogous external experiences can give rise to greater empathic understanding on the part of the analyst. In this paper,I hope to demonstrate that there are both advantages and serious pitfalls in experiential overlaps between the cultural experiences of the analyst and patient.     

Doing Therapy in a Foreign Land: When the Therapist Is “Not From Here”

The psychotherapy field has been paying closer attention to how therapists’ characteristics, history, and styles affect therapeutic encounters and contribute to successful therapy outcomes. Therapists have been encouraged to increase self-awareness of their own socio-cultural dimensions to optimally connect with clients. However, the experience of therapists’ own immigration has received little attention. This article highlights the experience of immigration as important for understanding the self of the therapist, describing core experiences related to immigration for immigrant therapists in the United States. This article additionally describes how these experiences can affect immigrant therapists’ clinical encounters. Finally, recommendations are provided for immigrant therapists, clinical supervisors, and training programs.     

A Phenomenological Study of Immigrant Parents of Adolescents with Delinquent Behavior in Israel

Scarce qualitative literature has focused on understanding the perspective of parents of adolescents involved in crime, and no prior literature has examined how the status of being a parent of an adolescent who is involved in delinquency intersects with being an immigrant parent. The current phenomenological study examined, through the eyes of immigrant parents, how they comprehend their children’s involvement in delinquent behavior. This study examined in-depth semistructured interviews conducted with fourteen immigrant parents (10 mothers and 4 fathers) from the former Soviet Union in Israel of children treated in rehabilitation facilities for delinquent youth. Data analysis revealed a gradual decline in children's behavior ascribed to the developmental stage of adolescence, the pressures of immigration, and cultural conflict. These three factors are interwoven together to create a fabric within which they see their children turning to crime. Parents' gradual loss of control is balanced by attempts to idealize the parent–child relationship and to minimize the severity of the offenses committed. They describe various differing and even contradictory experiences of themselves as parents and their struggles to piece together incohesive, alternating experiences of themselves as parents. Despite the critical role they can play in their children’s rehabilitation, as well as the distress that they themselves experience, parents of children involved in delinquent behavior have often been ignored in research. Acknowledging parents' perspectives and experiences can allow development of appropriate therapeutic strategies to support them and maximize their abilities to support their children.     

Sociocultural studies of families of children with intellectual disabilities

This article reviews recent sociocultural studies of families of children with intellectual disabilities to introduce the range of research conducted from this perspective and to highlight the methodological, conceptual, and theoretical contributions of this approach to the study of mental retardation. Sociocultural studies examine families within their cultural, historical, and sociopolitical contexts. This type of research is comparative across different cultural groups, but is not limited to such comparisons. Sociocultural studies use varied theories and methods, but they share a focus on families' coproduction of meanings and practices related to intellectual disability; families' responses and adaptations to disability; and how their understandings and experiences are shaped within larger social institutions and inequities. Sociocultural approaches take into account community contexts that matter to families with members with mental retardation or developmental delay, and they examine the broader systems that define and position individuals with disabilities and their families. As a whole, these studies provide a more experiential and holistic view of families' beliefs and adaptations within sociopolitical worlds, and offer new tools by which to study the families of children with developmental delays within and across different cultural groups.     

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS FOR STUDYING FEMALE MARRIAGE MIGRANTS

Transnational marriages account for a significant proportion of family-based immigration to North America. An increasing number of immigrant men are choosing to marry women from their countries of origin, and an increasing number of nonimmigrant men are choosing to marry women from other countries. Existing studies on the experiences of foreign brides entering North America have highlighted their vulnerability to spousal maltreatment, including unique forms of immigration abuse (e.g., threats of deportation). Their vulnerability to maltreatment has been attributed to the gender-insensitive nature of family immigration policies, the women's lack of awareness of their rights and immigration status, and their husbands' cultural beliefs about women's roles. This article describes three interrelated theoretical frameworks that can inform further research, practice, and policy development related to female marriage migrants. The frameworks draw on cross-cultural models of gender-based violence, seminal work on the psychology of women, and international human rights research.     

Housing Experiences of Recent Immigrants to Canada’s Small Cities: the Case of North Bay,Ontario

Adequate, suitable and affordable housing is one of the basic needs that must be successfully attained in the process of immigrant integration into a community. This case study consisting of semi-structured interviews and focus groups with new immigrants and landlords centres particularly on the housing experiences of immigrants in North Bay, a small city in Northeast Ontario. North Bay, like many small urban centres in Canada, has undertaken an immigration strategy in order to counter demographic challenges and boost economic development. The housing experiences were examined in terms of suitability given household size and composition, affordability relative to the immigrants’ financial resources as well as ownership and dwelling type. The connection between the immigrant’s housing experiences, their interactions with neighbours and landlords and their perceptions of the city as a welcoming community were also explored. Generally, the immigrants who participated in the study were satisfied with their current housing situation. Several participants were surprised to find a limited and older housing stock in North Bay and rental prices that were not significantly different from the larger cities they had left. Their housing experiences tended to either have a positive impact on their perceptions of the city or not at all. Policy implications and recommendations are also discussed.     

The Child Immigrant

This article uses a developmental perspective to look at the effects of immigration on the young child. Factors influencing the way in which the immigrant family negotiates the ongoing process of settling into the new country are considered. It is argued that the ability of parents to provide an adequate holding environment to protect the young child from too much loss or dislocation is probably the most critical factor in determining whether the child's internal world will be enriched or impoverished by the immigration experience. It is emphasized that immigration is an ongoing process for the entire family. Some clinical material is presented to illustrate how the child's engagement in the process of separation-individuation both shapes and is shaped by, the immigration experience.     

Formation, consolidation, and diversification of the ethnic elite: The case of the Chinese immigrant community in the United States

The Chinese immigrant community in the United States has gone through several historically significant periods: unrestricted immigration, Chinese exclusion, immigration on restricted quotas, and immigration on equal basis. Each historical period marks a unique pattern of immigrant adaptation and community development, which influences the formation, consolidation, and diversification of the elite. The aim of this article is to illuminate these processes within the greater Chinese immigrant community in the US. Members of the old elite are powerful to the extent that they are not assimilated; yet they remain powerless in the larger society because of their lack of participation. Members of the new elite groups, in contrast, achieve power by integrating themselves economically and socially into the larger society; yet their very integration, often at the expense of ethnic cohesiveness, subjects them to allegation of inferiority from the ethnic hierarchy. Thus they are powerless because they are too assimilated.     

Identity narratives of Muslim foreign workers in Japan

This article examines the identity and acculturation experience of Muslim foreign workers in Japan. The psychological impact of prolonged stay in a foreign country was studied by eliciting narratives of experiences of 24 male foreign workers from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Iran who had been in Japan more than 5 years. By analysing the narratives they produced, three different styles of stories emerged which explained their experiences and their attempts to maintain or construct a sense of identity. Accepting the dominant narrative of Japanese society and describing oneself as ‘almost like Japanese’ was one way. Another strategy stressed the rejection of the dominant narrative as well as attempts to maintain the original narrative of the self as educated and active young men. The third narrative showed how individuals re‐defined themselves as Muslim by incorporating religious identity into a central part of their self‐concepts, and asserting its pervasive effect on all aspects of life. This study provides a perspective for acculturation research focused on social elements of identity, and derived from experiences in a relatively mono‐cultural society recently opening to immigration and in which there is a prevailing ideology of assimilation. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

To Stay or Return: Migration Intentions of Students from People’s Republic of China in Saskatchewan, Canada

There is a growing policy concern in Canada regarding the facilitation of foreign students’ transition from temporary residents to permanent residents. Interestingly, academic attention to the issue is somewhat lacking. By focusing on the Chinese undergraduate student at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, this study attempts to identify the factors which influence their migration intentions. The findings confirm the important effects of students’ demographic characteristics, premove traits, Canadian experiences, parental expectations, as well as related aspiration factors. In addition, we find that female and male students are different from each other in terms of the factors that determine their intentions to stay in Canada. In light of the findings, we suggest that, in spite of gender differences, social and emotional adaptations are as critical as economic adaptation in facilitating temporary residents’ intentions to stay. Furthermore, we contend that changes in immigration policy to attract foreign students to stay do motivate their immigration intention to some extent, but we also recommend that extended research needs to be done to examine the effects of most recent policy changes on foreign students’ intended or actual migration.     

From reassurance to irrelevance: adolescent psychology and homosexuality in America

American psychology by the 1920s contained a greater capacity for viewing some homosexual experiences as normal than most current historical literature suggests. Developmental psychologists agreed with psychiatrists that adult homosexuality was pathological, but they also agreed that adolescent sexual development included a homosexual phase. Until the late 1960s, developmental texts reassured parents and teachers that homosexual behavior among adolescents was transitory and quite normal. The psychiatric view of homosexuality as pathology came under attack after the middle of the century and eventually was abandoned. The developmental concern with a transitory homosexual phase disappeared gradually. This trend in psychology suggests underlying social and cultural changes.     

I loved him and he scared me: Migrant women,partner visas and domestic violence

This study considers the experience of migrant women engaging with the Australian Department of Immigration through the Family Violence Provisions (Migration Regulations, 1994). These provisions allow women applying for partner visas to remain in the country after separation, if they can prove they experienced domestic violence. Forty semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty migrant women from diverse backgrounds, focusing on their experiences of intimacy and violence and their emotions regarding the relationship. Using the Listening Guide methodology, data was analysed focusing on women's voices and the emotions concerning this subject. This paper considers Australian Immigration Law's requirement of a ‘genuine and continuing relationship’ and how it engages with women's emotions. The study argues that there is a distance between women's emotional responses to their relationships and immigration demands for proof and emotional consistency. The result is that women's emotions are dismissed by the same immigration system that has been historically shaped by emotions towards immigrants. The article ends by proposing that women's stories and emotions are valuable sources of information for visa processes and indicates countries where, in some cases, immigration laws already engage with women's emotions as reliable sources of information.