Britalians: Living and Surviving in a New Culture.

The Psychology of Migration: Challenges, Distress and Helpful Advice

Anyone who has left their own country and started a new life abroad knows just how much courage, sacrifice and strength it takes.

The experience of migration can be difficult to understand unless you have lived through it yourself. Every experience tells a different story, as unique as the person who has lived it. Yet, despite these individual differences, every migration experience carries certain common elements.

When we decide to move to another country, we are faced with both a choice and a new life project. That choice involves separation from the people we love and from our home country, with its culture, values, family ties, friendships and emotional connections. This separation can create a profound internal disruption, affecting a person's sense of balance and bringing uncertainty and distress, while at the same time generating excitement, hope and expectations for the future.

When migrants arrive in a new country, the initial impact — and the way they manage this first stage — can be crucial. It marks the transition from the idealisation of migration to the experience of actually living the reality of it. It is within this transition that people also have the opportunity and potential to redefine themselves and begin shaping their new life.

While going through this painful process of separation — and therefore, in many ways, a process of mourning — migrants encounter a new culture.

Everything is different: smells, tastes, colours. The way people behave, the language they speak, their habits and everyday routines.

Psychologically, this can be a particularly delicate stage, as the person begins to experience what is commonly known as culture shock. Familiar defence mechanisms and coping strategies may emerge as ways of protecting oneself from an environment that can initially feel unfamiliar or even threatening, while trying at the same time to adapt to new situations and develop new emotional and social connections.

The encounter between two cultures — the culture of origin and the culture of the new country — can generate worries, fears and emotional distress and may sometimes lead to a profound questioning of one's identity.

Alongside my own personal experience of living abroad, I have worked therapeutically with many migrants and have accompanied them through this often painful process.

The difficulties people experience can take many forms. There may be sadness and episodes of crying that sometimes feel impossible to control. People may experience guilt about having left their loved ones behind or about the suffering their departure may have caused. There can be regret, as well as excessive worry about the health and wellbeing of family members back home.

Tension and anxiety can become extremely intense and may sometimes manifest as phobias, obsessive thoughts, compulsive behaviours or panic attacks. Making decisions can become difficult, while loneliness gradually occupies more and more emotional space.

At night, homesickness, melancholy and recurring thoughts can become particularly difficult to contain, and insomnia is far from uncommon.

People often experience these symptoms without adequate support and may even begin to fear that they are losing control or "going mad". Isolation can intensify this sense of alienation. Life may begin to feel strangely unreal, almost as though the person were detached from their surroundings, and this can sometimes lead to increased mistrust or apprehension towards the unfamiliar environment.

Trying to minimise or simply ignore these difficulties can be counterproductive. Distress may intensify over time and, in some cases, additional symptoms may emerge.

Seeking psychological or therapeutic support early can therefore be extremely valuable in helping to understand, contain and reduce the distress that can gradually exhaust and undermine a person's wellbeing.

During this period of transition, it can also be very helpful to connect with people from one's country of origin who are already living in the new country. These relationships can help someone become familiar with their new surroundings while also providing a temporary sense of safety and belonging: hearing the reassuring sound of one's own language, sharing familiar references and reconnecting, even briefly, with one's own culture.

Whenever possible, returning home periodically and spending time with family, friends and familiar places can offer a form of emotional refuelling. Similarly, finding people with whom you can speak your own language, share experiences and simply feel "at home" for a while can provide an important emotional bridge between the life that was left behind and the life that is still being built.

Therapy can offer another kind of bridge. It does not simply help reduce distress; it can also help a person find their bearings in a new life. At a time when so much feels unfamiliar, the therapeutic relationship can become one of the first spaces in which a person feels genuinely seen, understood and emotionally connected.

Migration is a transition with enormous psychological potential. Without sufficient support, it can become an extremely painful and destabilising experience. With time, awareness, meaningful relationships and appropriate support, however, it can also become an extraordinary life experience — an opportunity for discovery, transformation and a genuine new beginning.

Every transformation, every process of change and every important choice inevitably involves some form of loss, sacrifice and letting go.

Having the courage to ask for help can be an essential part of building a fulfilling personal and professional life.

Because life should not be only about surviving.

It should also be about living.