Mental health difficulties among migrants: experiences of recognition and treatment

Due to an increasing social relevance of international migration at national and global levels and increasing restrictiveness of migration policies as a significant source of uncertainties and distress that migrants experience, it is not surprising that scientific as well as political interest in the topic of migration and mental health has risen in the last few decades. The topic has been addressed both in epidemiological studies of prevalence and risk factors as well as in research that has addressed also the socio-political context both in countries of emigration and immigration that can have an impact on the experience and coping with such distress. In this respect, the aim of the proposed project is to ensure a better informed explanation of mental health of migrants than the one evidenced by extant public health and epidemiological evidence. Therefore, the main activity of the project will be a qualitatively designed field work research between stakeholders and professional workers in the field of migration and/or mental health and among migrants themselves. The aim of the research among migrants is to research how socio-political circumstances that define the position of migrants in the new countries, such as, for example the increasing securitisation and restrictiveness of migration policies, the processes of precarisation of labour and employment, discrimination and stigmatisation of migrants, difficulties in socio-economic integration, etc., have an impact on the uncertainties and distresses of individual migrants, how they understand, explain, experience and make meaning of them and which obstacles they perceive in access to relevant professional services and last but not least, how they cope with such distress and uncertainties. The results will be a basis for practical results of the project – a manual for recognition in treatment of mental health difficulities among migrants for professionals in health and social care and a multilingual leaflet for migrants on the topic of mental health difficulties. In the conceptual sense, the proposed project draws mainly on the tradition of critical social work and culturally informed psychiatry that places mental distress in the context of structural inequalities, suffering and differences in social power, but also agency, skills and active coping with distress. In this sense, the research will offer a reflection on the prevailing categories of illness and symptomatics that may not be relevant for particular individuals, but may bear a decisive impact on the modes of looking for help and support. In this way, we are also reflecting on the prevailing concept of cultural competence as reflections of the users’s supposed specific ethnic background by focusing on intersectional factors that influence the experience of and modes of coping with mental distress. In this regard, special attention will be afforded to institutional practices that can lead to mistrust towards professional services.