The Immigrant Experience

What are the stresses encountered by the psychiatrist who is an immigrant or a
refugee? What professional biases does the immigrant psychiatrist need to face, and
what are the implications for family life? What administrative hurdles do they need to
overcome?

  • Over 30% of psychiatric residents are international medical graduates, many of whom are
    immigrants. This roundtable discussion highlights the issues they face. See “Residents’
    Roundtable: The Psychiatric Resident’s Immigrant Experience.”
  • In this link, Adriana Foster, Kim-Lan Czelusta, Daniela White, Andreea Seritan, and
    James W. Lomax offer a narrative account of immigrants from Iran, Afghanistan, and
    Rumania who became psychiatrists and joined the faculty of the Baylor College of
    Medicine. See “Stories of Success”
    This essay appears as Chapter 25 of The Handbook of Refugee Experience:
    Trauma, Resilience and Recovery, edited by Jeffrey A. Kottler, Sophia Banu, and Suni
    Jani; Cognella Publications, 2019, San Diego; see https://titles.cognella.com/handbookof-refugee-experience-9781516526741). Our thanks to the publishers for permission to
    publish this chapter. Except for personal use or archive, no part of this text may be
    reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or stored in or introduced into any information
    storage or retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or
    mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the written permission of the
    Publisher.
  • Eugenio M. Rothe and Andres J. Pumariega address the following questions: “What will
    the ethnic, racial and cultural face of the United States look like in the upcoming decades,
    and how will the American population adapt to these changes? Immigration, Cultural
    Identity, and Mental Health: Psycho-social Implications of the Reshaping of America[https://global.oup.com/academic/product/immigration-cultural-identity-and-mentalhealth-9780190661700?cc=us&lang=en&] outlines the various psychosocial impacts of
    immigration on cultural identity and its impact on mainstream culture. Thoroughly
    researched, this book examines how cultural identity relates to individual mental health
    and should be taken into account in mental health treatment.
    “ Further, the book aims to elucidate the importance of ethnicity and race in the
    psycho-therapeutic encounter and offers treatment recommendations on how to approach
    and discuss issues of ethnicity and race in psychotherapy. It also presents evidence-based
    psychological treatment interventions for immigrants and members of minority
    populations and shows how psychotherapy involves the creation of new, more adaptive
    narratives that can provide healing, personal growth, and relevance to the immigrant
    experience. Throughout, the authors provide clinical case examples to illustrate the
    concepts presented.”