Loss and the expat experience: Mourning as a means of healthy engagement
Contributed by Scott Graybow, PhD, LCSW
Feelings of loss emerge from shifting circumstances. Leaving our country of origin is one example of a change that constitutes a significant and deeply meaningful loss. It means adapting to new challenges and accepting the reality they impose. Inevitably, we experience strong and complex reactions about this loss: pleasant, unpleasant, or a mixture of both. When the emotions that arise are unpleasant and persistent, people understandably turn to therapy for support.
In this brief essay, I offer three points for your consideration. Combined, these points offer a description of how leaving one’s country, and the emotional troubles that often accompany it, are understood and worked on in psychoanalytic therapy. To do so, I will build off Freud’s (1917) paper Mourning and Melancholia in which he famously wrote, “Mourning is regularly the reaction to the loss of a loved person, or to the loss of some abstraction which has taken the place of one, such as one’s country…” (pp. 243).
- Symptoms have meaning. One of the defining qualities of psychoanalytic therapy is its understanding of symptoms. While other therapeutic approaches view symptoms as problems to eliminate, psychoanalytic therapy sees them as the mind’s attempt to tell us something. Therefore, symptoms must be understood and engaged with for them to go away. Of course, our aim is to offer relief, and extensive research has shown that analytic therapy is highly effective at addressing depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other conditions (Shedler, 2010; Solms, 2021). While each symptom is unique to the person experiencing it, in general we think of a symptom as a communication about the mind’s attempt to solve a problem. Typically, our mind can do this without any trouble and its efforts go unnoticed. But, when the attempted solution is insufficient, we become aware of this struggle by way of a symptom. Think of an electric cord plugged into a socket: normally it operates silently without issue, but when something misfires, we might see sparks or smell smoke – the symptom speaks to an underlying problem that requires attention.
- Loss triggers a process of coming to terms with our true feelings about what is gone. The mind’s work of coping (i.e., mourning) with a loss can falter when symptoms of melancholia arise. Like mourning, melancholia involves sadness, lack of motivation, and other feelings typically associated with adjusting to a loss. When these symptoms persist and are accompanied by self-loathing and withdrawal from the pleasures and responsibilities of the external world, mourning has shifted to melancholia. The symptoms of melancholia signal difficulty letting go because we have not yet come to terms with the full extent of our feelings about what has been lost. We might be aware of how much we loved our country of origin, but we might not be so familiar with the disappointing emotions we harbor towards it. Or we might be aware of them but feel ashamed or fearful of acknowledging them openly. Importantly, our feelings speak to the loss of not just our country, but the people and things we associate with it. If we harbor unacknowledged and unexpressed emotions about these associations, our ability to make the best our move to a new country is compromised; we are haunted by what is gone but not gone because it is not yet known.
- Mourning means letting go AND putting down new roots. Analytic therapy provides a space to sit with painful feelings about loss while being seen and heard by an empathic, attentive professional. It is also a time to develop a narrative that articulates precisely how we feel about what was lost. Notably, when therapy patients trying to overcome a loss criticize themselves or express self-loathing, we consider the possibility their complaints are actually misdirected expressions of emotions harbored against that which has been lost. With time and sustained therapeutic work, this emotional knot becomes untangled, allowing feelings to be directed towards what they are truly about. This frees the patient to emotionally engage with something new. For an expat in a new country, this might mean developing a realistic, meaningful relationship with the challenges and opportunities of their new environment. It can mean a decrease in feelings of guilt and worry and an increase in feelings of confidence and trust in oneself. Ultimately, overcoming a loss doesn’t just mean letting go. It also involves forming new emotional connections. These connections do not necessarily replace what was lost. Rather, they satisfy the needs we carry in us wherever we go.
I hope these points have given you a sense of how psychoanalytic therapy approaches the psychology of loss.
Author: Scott Graybow, PhD, LCSW
Freud, S. (1957). Mourning and melancholia. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 14, pp. 237–258). Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1917).
Shedler, J. (2010). The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 65(2), 98–109.
Solms, M. (2021). The scientific standing of psychoanalysis. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 69(1), 101-133
Scott Graybow, PhD is a psychoanalyst based in New York City. He offers individual therapy, couples therapy, and clinical supervision. He is a member of the Contemporary Freudian Society and the International Psychoanalytical Association. He can be reached at 917-715-5489 or sgraybowlcsw@gmail.com
