4 November 2000
Stuart Wood

"As our civilisation advances, so it would seem does our capacity for fragmentation*"

So writes Dick Blackwell, Chair of the Institute of Group Analysis at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. His work concerns the emotional and psychological fall-out of social and its resultant personal fragmentation, suggesting that 'immigrants' are not members of a special class but individuals undergoing specific types of change and upheaval. It is an opinion that often goes unheard in the clamour to defend the borders of Britain and Europe. Along with Blackwell, a new breed of volunteers, including doctors, psychotherapists and counsellors is emerging which looks past the hyperbole to the human truths beneath.

One such professional is Ditty Doktor, senior lecturer in Dramatherapy at the University of Hertfordshire. Doktor is reknowned for raising the profile of intercultural issues and the specific problems encountered by migrating communities. She has the unenviable task of suggesting that'immigrants' are in fact human beings likely to experience trauma and isolation. Her argument is that "migration is not a single event, but a developing process. It will affect people differently, depending on the life-cycle phase they are in at the time of transition." (151)

She suggests that immigration can affect people differently according to their stage of life. For instance, a young adult is likely to adapt to a new culture in, say, their choice of partner. They are by contrast most vulnerable to cutting off their heritage, leaving themselves open to disconnection in later life. Families with young children can have a reversal of parental hierarchy, with parents finding it harder to acculturate than their children. Imagine the upheaval of migration during adolescence, where the multiple transitions of culture and adulthood coincide.

This is why new forms of professional help are being researched and piloted across the country. In London, for instance, music therapists are using the non-verbal powers of music to establish relationships with people who have been traumatised by migration and its associated effects. The arts therapies in general are proving valuable tools for dealing both with the emotional and relational questions that displacement raises.

Migration affects over generations. It remains an essential aspect of identity well into the third and fourth generation and sometimes beyond. Perhaps it is part of a responsible society to take the whole person into account when our decisions and values impact so profoundly on someone's life. The new thinking suggests that this is a long-term relationship. The immigrant experience shows that nothing stands still for long. While the immigration is a process for the individual, it is also a process of constant change for the wider society that loses, or accomodates more citizens.

*Doktor, D (Ed.) (1998) Arts Therapists, Refugees and Migrants: Reaching across Borders, London, Jessica Kingsley.