Migratory grief in refugee people: between mental health and psychosocial intervention

Abstract

Migratory movements in Latin America and Africa have been increasing, largely at the expense of growing socioeconomic and political instability, associated with a climate of military tension, religious and ethnic conflict, and political persecution. The migratory journey, which is often carried out irregularly, involves physical and mental exhaustion due to losses and psychosocial traumas that have an important impact on mental health, creating barriers to the process of adapting to the host country. In order to understand how the experience of migratory mourning is experienced by refugees and, from that, to identify factors that come into play in the investigation and intervention process with this target group, an exploratory study was carried out, starting from a phenomenological methodology. , based on in-depth interviews with three refugees, residing in Spain, victims of political persecution. The analysis categories and semantic networks were created using the Atlas.ti program. The results showed the existence of four categories, namely Experience of Migratory Mourning, Factors that contribute/intensify Psychic Suffering, Protective Factors and Factors associated with Social Adaptation. The results showed that the migratory grief experienced by refugees presupposes important losses in the seven dimensions of migratory grief. The situation of investigation and psychological intervention praxis aimed at promoting mental health, taking this target group, presupposes an intersubjective encounter in which the participants build a psychological field where pain and psychological suffering are shared. The help process begins with the formulation of questions, which are converted into hypotheses to make sense of what is happening. In the field of psychological intervention, research implies psychosocial repair and contact with the psychological suffering of the other.