Are We All Refugees?

ABSTRACT

This article examines the refugee experience as a loss of home. When home is viewed as much more than simply a place but is understood as a concept that signifies how human beings locate themselves among other human beings in the world, the loss of home is seen as almost always traumatic. The article begins with the psychoanalytic literature on the refugee experience. Then with reference to a study of the refugees of the Fukushima earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor explosions, it discusses the societal traumas that drive people out of their homes. It is suggested that all humans share a sense of radical anxiety upon being disconnected from or unstably bonded to home. Next, Buber’s understanding of home is considered. The article concludes with an illustrative clinical vignette and a discussion of the possible intergenerational transmission of exile and homelessness starting with the experience of early humans.

KEYWORDS:

• Home; homelessness; trauma; refugees; Buber
• intergenerational transmission

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Selfobject is a concept originated by Kohut that refers to a psychological function by a significant person or group that provides experiences of self-cohesion for an individual. While many theorists tend to see “selfobject” as referring to a function provided by a real person, others still view it as a type of object. Wolf (1985), for example, defines “selfobjects as a special class of objects – or of symbols or ideas representing objects – that perform the specific functions of providing a self-evoking and self-sustaining experience to the potential and to the emerged self” (p. 271).

Additional information

Funding

This article is supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(C), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan.

Notes on contributors

Koichi Togashi

Koichi Togashi, Ph.D., L.P., is a Faculty and Training and Supervising Analyst at the Training and Research in Intersubjective Self Psychology Foundation, New York; a Professor at Konan University, Kobe, Japan; and is in private practice in Hiroshima and Kobe, Japan. He is a Council Member of the International Association for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, and an International Editor of Psychoanalysis, Self and Context.

Doris Brothers

Doris Brothers, Ph.D., is a co-founder and faculty member of the Training and Research in Intersubjective Self Psychology Foundation (TRISP). She served as co-editor of Psychoanalysis, Self and Context with Roger Frie from 2015 to 2019. She is chief editor of eForum, the online newsletter of IAPSP. Her last book is Toward a Psychology of Uncertainty: Trauma-Centered Psychoanalysis (Analytic Press, 2008). Her private practice is in Manhattan, New York.