A psychoanalytic and qualitative research on immigrants' “left‐behind” children: “I understand why they left, but why did they leave?”

Abstract

Background and Purpose: The psychoanalytic literature on migration has extensively explored the psychic impact of the migration process on the people who migrate, whereas the predicament of the immigrants' children that were left behind in the country of origin has been largely overlooked. This paper has a twofold aim. Firstly, it sets out to explore the experience of being left behind as a child by parents who emigrated to another country for economic reasons, and secondly, it aspires to present a valid combination of psychoanalytic thinking and qualitative design. Methods: Fourteen adult men and women who as children were left behind in Greece when their parents emigrated were interviewed about their current perspectives on their childhood experiences. Their narratives were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis, a qualitative research method that can offer material suitable for psychodynamic understanding. Results: The analysis of the interviews yielded the overarching theme "Trauma" and four superordinate themes, "Intense emotions," "Effects on parent-child relationship," "Defenses," and "Psychopathology." The discussion of the results focuses on the psychoanalytic exploration of the trauma induced by the early and prolonged parent-child separation and its psychic sequelae. Conclusion: Being left in the country of origin by parents who emigrated to another country for economic reasons was a traumatic experience for the "left-behind" children.

Parental migration and left-behind children in Georgia – school teachers’ experience and perception: a qualitative study

“…Several qualitative studies from various countries studied the perspective of LBC [ 16 , 59 , 67 – 71 ] and echo our findings: parental migration was seen as a traumatizing life experience, in China [ 71 ] even causing psychopathologies in Greece [ 70 ]. LBC in China [ 67 ], Ecuador [ 16 ] and Thailand [ 61 ] found good care and supportive caregivers to be important for a sense of stability, well-being and resilience; while inadequate care and structural factors such as divorce and poverty increased LBC’s vulnerability in China [ 71 ].…”

“A sacred sacrifice?” exploring children’s meaning-making of separation from their parents due to political reasons.

“…Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), an increasingly popular qualitative methodology in mainstream psychology (Smith, 2019), was selected because it enables the in-depth exploration of personal experiences. Indeed, IPA can offer material suitable for psychodynamic understanding and interpretation (Willig, 2013) and has been used in psychoanalytic research (Anagnostaki & Zaharia, 2020).…”

“…We believe it noteworthy to investigate whether (and how) the different causes of separation, the perceived voluntary or involuntary nature of it, and the salience of ideology typical of political conflict (Barber, 2014) may influence children’s understanding of their experience of parental separation in retrospect. A first study on parent–children separation due to parental immigration for economic reasons in Greece revealed that it was experienced as major trauma by the children affected by it, and the (now adult) children reported intense emotions (including anger, feeling of injustice, abandonment, and fear), rupture in the parent–child relationship, and psychopathological symptoms (Anagnostaki & Zaharia, 2020). The present research focuses on a different cause of parent–children separation: forced parental separation due to ideological and political reasons.…”

“…The themes that emerged from the analysis of their narratives demonstrated that the perceived etiology of separation defined these children’s understanding and meaning-making of their experiences. Their accounts were in discordance with those of children separated by their parents due to economic immigration, who provided an account of cumulative trauma (Anagnostaki & Zaharia, 2020). The participants in the present research talked proudly of a parental “sacred sacrifice” that has acquired the characteristics of an ideal and should/could not be questioned.…”

“Dreaming Undreamt Dreams” in Psychological Counseling with Italian Women Who Experienced Intimate Partner Violence: A Phenomenological-Interpretative Analysis of the Psychologists’ Experience

“…An original dimension of the study was the ability to bring together a qualitative research method and psychodynamic theory, in line with previous studies [100][101][102] that consider interpretative phenomenological analysis an approach that offers suitable material for psychodynamic understanding and interpretation. Qualitative research results, such as IPA, should be considered in terms of vertical generalizability [103], interested in building interpretative theory, expanding knowledge and contributing to existing theories and the generation of new hypotheses, proposing a reassessment of what has been considered known or understood about the investigated phenomenon, differently from the horizontal generalizability which points towards results applicable in all contexts.…”