Mela, C. (2022). A Neuro-psychotherapeutic Approach of the Psychological Migration Trauma: Its Expression and Treatment in the Psychotherapeutic Groups. International Journal of Psychology and Neuroscience, 8(2), 60-73.Doi:https://doi.org/10.56769/ijpn08205

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Abstract

Migration and mobility have featured as key elements in the recent political and economic history of our world. Trauma appears in many dimensions of life during migration (national, physical, organic, political, social, financial), and it can be transformed through generations. The main focus of this paper is to present the multiple faces of the migration trauma in refugees and discuss neurobiological aspects of the pathogenesis and expression of the psychological migration trauma. From the beginning of our life, a very complex biochemical dialogue is established with our current and past life, through the maternal experiences and its relations with the Social Unconscious. Trauma provokes gaps and wounds of time, space, of boundaries and nations that can be carried trans-generationally as a genetic, ethical or national heritage. Cultural Epidemiology focuses among several parameters in migration on the need of a container in the new way of living of the new country. The psychological migration trauma asks for evolutionary refugee – focused therapies, to help victims to face not only one traumatic event, the searing isolation of social distancing and the loss of human dignity but also multiple traumas and losses, including rape, war and torture. Cellular biology, neurobiology, epigenetics, and psychology underscore the importance of exploring at least three generations of family history in order to understand the mechanism behind patterns of migration’s trauma and suffering.

Keywords: Migration, Traumatized Refugees, Trauma, Group-Psychotherapy, Brain Plasticity.