Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy

Online Therapy
01273 921 355
  • Home
  • Therapy Services
    • Fees
    • How Psychotherapy Works
    • Who is it for?
    • Individual Therapy
    • Child Therapy
    • Couples Therapy
    • Marriage Counselling
    • Family Therapy
    • Group Psychotherapy
    • Corporate Counselling and Therapy Services
    • Clinical Supervision
    • FAQs
  • Types of Therapy
    • Acceptance Commitment Therapy
    • Analytic Psychotherapy
    • Body Psychotherapy
    • Clinical Psychology
    • Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
    • Compassion Focused Therapy
    • Coronavirus (Covid-19) Counselling
    • Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
    • EMDR
    • Existential Psychotherapy
    • Gestalt Psychotherapy
    • Group Analytic Psychotherapy
    • Integrative Psychotherapy
    • IPT – Interpersonal Psychotherapy
    • Online Therapy
    • Psychoanalytic Child & Adolescent Psychotherapy
    • Systemic Psychotherapy
    • Transactional Analysis
    • Trauma Psychotherapy
  • Types of Issues
    • Abuse
    • Addiction
      • Gambling addiction
      • Porn Addiction
    • Affairs
    • Anger Management
    • Anxiety
    • Bereavement Counselling
    • Coronavirus Induced Mental Health Issues
    • Cross Cultural Issues
    • Depression
    • Family Issues
    • LGBT+ Issues
    • Low Self-Esteem
    • Relationship Issues
    • Sexual Issues
    • Stress
  • Online Therapy
    • Online Anger Management Therapy
    • Online Anxiety Counselling
    • Online Bereavement Therapy
    • Online Depression Psychotherapy
    • Online Relationship Therapy
  • Our Practitioners
    • Practitioner Search
  • Work with us
  • Blog
    • Ageing
    • Attachment
    • Child Development
    • Families
    • Gender
    • Groups
    • Loss
    • Mental Health
    • Neuroscience
    • Parenting
    • Psychotherapy
    • Relationships
    • Resources
    • Sexuality
    • Sleep
    • Society
    • Spirituality
    • Work
  • Contact Us
    • Contact Us – Brighton & Hove Practice
    • Contact Us – Lewes Practice
    • Contact Us – Online Therapy
    • Privacy Policy

December 2, 2019 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

Home is in my Head: Rediscovering your Identity in a New Culture

The urge to migrate twists through the marrow of our bones; the restless energy moving our ancestors across vast wastelands in search of a better life mirrors our journey to self-actualisation.  With global migration on the rise what happens to your relationship to yourself and to others when  you leave your birth country for a different life? How do you fit yourself to a culture that is both exciting and un-lived and yet as closed as an unread book?

Years ago my mother an economic migrant and native french speaker, studied French A Level at my school together with my peers. Back then I didn’t understand and was embarrassed by her presence in the school corridors.  Now I see how courageous and important it was to navigate, and excel in, a world of English teenagers (she achieved Grade A).  Undoubtedly she struggled with her inner voice that continues to taunt ‘you are a guest in this country’.  How much I ingested of her shame I can’t say. It is impossible to separate the hidden toxicity of shame from my identity – the me who lives, breathes and continually adapts to the pull of three different cultures: my parents’ and the British culture I was born into.

Whether through choice or forced migration the traumatic consequences of relocation can include rootlessness, alienation, difficulties in relating to others and disconnection to yourself – it requires emotional investment to redefine yourself in an alien culture, to start to fit in, to feel a sense of belonging.  Dislocation leads to a sense of disease, of being ill at ease with the person you thought you were, without a clear sense of yourself in relation to others. Says Gestalt theorist Yontef (1993)  ‘Living that is not based on the truth of oneself leads to feelings of dread, guilt and anxiety’.

You might ask who am I in this new place I inhabit, how do I move, talk, occupy this alien environment? Whose space is it? Am I allowed in? Will the other give up some of their space for me in the territorial dance between us?

“I can’t stay in one place, my home is in my head”* state A-wa, an Israeli pop group who sing in Yemeni as an homage to their grandparents.  This sentiment is felt as a spiritual and physical load, the burden of those who carry the heart and soul of their homeland with them wherever they go.

I hold inside me poignant stories of others’ longings for a secure base: the European man who seeks love looks for a woman who understands the food he used to eat at his mother’s table.  The woman whose future lies in repeated migrations – whose only home is her partner.

Perhaps a way to reorient yourself to a new country is in finding allies in people from your own culture or embracing your partner’s family. In the therapy room you may want to explore finding a way back to yourself, the you who hasn’t stood still but hasn’t yet found a way to fit in.  Therapy can support you to restore the sense of who you are, what you want to say, what you want to ask for.

By rooting yourself in your own identity, you can re-build self esteem and ultimately risk new and exciting relationships in the world around you – your colleagues, peers, future friends and family.

 

Resources: 

*  A-wa, (2019) from the album Bayti Fi Rasi

Yontef, G (1993) Awareness, Dialogue & Process: Essays on Gestalt Therapy. Highland. N.Y: The Gestalt Journal Press

 

Please follow the links to find out more about about our therapists and the types of therapy services we offer.  We have practices in Hove and Lewes.  Online therapy is also available.

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

Click Here to Enquire
Facebooktwitter

Filed Under: Relationships, Society Tagged With: Relationships, self-development, Self-esteem

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Find your practitioner

loader
Wordpress Meta Data and Taxonomies Filter

Locations -

  • Brighton
  • Lewes
  • Online
loader
loader
loader
loader
loader

Search for your practitioner by location

Brighton
Lewes

Therapy services +

Therapy services: 

Therapy types

Therapy types: 

Our Practitioners

  • Mark Vahrmeyer
  • Sam Jahara
  • Gerry Gilmartin
  • Dr Simon Cassar
  • Claire Barnes
  • David Work
  • Angela Rogers
  • Magdalena Whitehouse
  • Dorothea Beech
  • Paul Salvage
  • Susanna Petitpierre
  • Sharon Spindler
  • Michael Reeves
  • Kevin Collins
  • Rebecca Mead
  • Dr John Burns
  • Georgie Leake

Work with us

Find out more….

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Copyright © 2021 – Brighton And Hove Psychotherapy – Privacy Policy
6 The Drive, Hove , East Sussex, BN3 3JA.

COVID-19 (CORONAVIRUS) Important Notice

We would like to reassure all our clients that Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy is operating as normal despite the current situation.

Our working practices have fully incorporated online therapy in addition to a re-opening of our Hove and Lewes practices for face-to-face psychotherapy in accordance with Government guidelines and advice on safe practice and social distancing.