The present study examines the process of voluntary and involuntary migration as an existential crisis situation which is experienced as a time-limited, localized and focused life event. Migrant and immigrant individuals and families may experience the situation which ensues the period of environmental and cultural change as an overwhelming threat. As the earlier applied coping mechanisms often will be found as inapplicable, thus they may become maladaptive. The paper describes the different stages of the migration and the development of individual, marital, familial and social symptom formation as a result of the crisis. Once the previously well-functioning psychological defenses can no longer be maintained, psychosomatic disorders may follow. The difficulties of adjustment are characterized by feelings of lack of contact with the environment, by the threat of isolation and by the development of emotional and social insecurity. Lack of feeling of identification with the recipient community increases the tendency to escape into somatic complaints and into the development of minor illnesses.

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economic aspect Short Survey central nervous system ethnic or racial aspects coping behavior geographic distribution normal human maladjustment psychological aspect isolation crisis major clinical study adult migration