The construction of the relationship between psychiatry and migration is at the crossroads of political, economic and ideological issues which make it difficult to read into the clinical facts. After retracing the political and social issues relating to the mental health of migrants, this article reflects on the debates confronting psychiatric knowledge as regards cultural relativism by raising the question of the status given to this difference in contemporary clinical practice. We would like to stress that cultural causality does not necessarily question the nosographic approach to classical psychiatry and that this alone can shed light on the underlying psychic conflict which is basically reflected in individual clinical case reports.

Migration culture Psychiatry psychopathology migrant Ethno-psychiatry Psychic causality Political

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