How to do psychotherapy or perform a psychological intervention on someone who mistrusts the system so much that he doesn’t even give us his real name, when we know that trust is the first prerequisite for treatment? . There have been cases of immigrant minors who have given up to 28 different names, one for each reception center.
Offering quality psychological and psychosocial care to immigrants, which would include refugees, is a growing concern among professionals in the areas of mental health, social work, and education. Fortunately, there is an increasing awareness in our society that adequately caring for these human groups requires in-depth knowledge of their specific characteristics, something that has rarely been taken into account when carrying out health and care programs.
How does the explicit or covert discrimination that immigrants frequently suffer affect the therapeutic relationship? . Or how are excluded immigrants affected by the defenselessness and growing inequality they suffer, with all the social violence that they entail?
The therapeutic intervention with these immigrants does not take place in “the ether” of a virginal neutrality, within the framework of a relationship of equal to equal patient-therapist, but within the framework of profound inequality. And all this, how could it be otherwise, is present in the therapeutic relationship, especially in what is called transference, the emotional relationship that the person requesting psychological help establishes with the professional who helps him and who in these cases becomes It is marked by the hostility and mistrust, linked to exclusion, that the immigrant feels towards the professional whom he sees as a member of the system, someone who is “on the other side”. It is very important to understand these psychological processes in order to provide quality psychological help to these people.
Intervention in mental health must take into account not only the psychological aspects, but also the social and cultural conditions that affect these people in a very relevant way. How to carry out a quality psychological intervention with someone who has different values from those of the therapist, someone who, for example, considers that personal autonomy is not something positive, but rather a defect. Someone who considers that his personal role is linked to that of his family, to that of his group, as occurs in communitarian cultures. Our Western psychotherapy model is largely based, increasingly in relation to our competitive and individualistic social model, on the empowerment of the person’s autonomy, while in many communitarian societies, the person acts beyond the rules of the group is considered a defect, something negative.
IN RELATION TO THIS THEME, SO RELEVANT TO OUR CURRENT SOCIETY, WE HAVE ORGANIZED A DEBATE AROUND THE PRESENTATION OF THE BOOK “PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOSOCIAL INTERVENTIONS WITH IMMIGRANTS, MINORITIES AND THE SOCIALLY EXCLUDED” BY JOSEBA ACHOTEGUI, PUBLISHED IN THE “EDITORIAL EL MUNDO DE LA MENTE” ” http://www.elmundodelamente.com/
THE PRESENTATION OF THE BOOK AND THE DEBATE WILL TAKE PLACE ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 11 AT 7:30 PM IN THE GARCÍA POLAVIEJA CLASSROOM OF THE COMILLAS UNIVERSITY, ALBERTO AGUILERA 23. MARIÀ DE DELÀS, GENERAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR OF THE PUBLIC NEWSPAPER, MERCEDES FERNÁNDEZ, WILL PARTICIPATE DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF MIGRATION AT COMILLAS UNIVERSITY, AND JOSEBA ACHOTEGUI, PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA AND AUTHOR OF THE BOOK
WE WAITING FOR YOU
jachoteguil@gmailcom