In the era of skype and low-cost airlines, do we still die of longing? How to cope with emigration? Is nostalgia worth fighting for? – we ask psychologists Katarzyna Kucewicz and Radosław Kucharski. The pretext is John Crowley’s “Brooklyn”, who fought for an Oscar a few days ago and is already in Polish cinemas. The adaptation of Colm Tobin’s novel is the story of a love triangle and a story about longing, which years ago doctors considered a dangerous disease.
Marta Makowska: Apparently, psychiatrists used to consider longing to be a disease and tried to heal the longing!
Katarzyna Kucewicz: Yes, for years it was believed that nostalgia was a mental illness with symptoms similar to depression. Today, the approach to it is a bit different. It is believed that longing can turn into a depressive disorder when it is strong, obsessive, lasts for weeks and knocks us out of the rhythm of life.
Radoslaw Kucharski: This type of longing, which disorganizes life, excludes from normal functioning it has its medical term – it is an element of disorders referred to as the disease entity number F43.2.
KK: For this longing, which appears sporadically, we even need it. It strengthens our identity, gives a sense of continuity – after all, you long for the past, for a certain “feeling”, often identified with a person or with a place, as in the movie “Brooklyn”. My colleague, psychologist Dr. Anna Braniecka from the SWPS University in her research proved that nostalgia can have an impact on efficient adaptation to difficult situations, on a good understanding of oneself and the environment, and the prevention of mental crises. Provided, of course, that we can live it without obsession and self-aggrandizement, but with deep reflection.
With deep reflectivity? I guess the multitude of stimuli, the pace of life make it difficult and we stop missing quickly?
KK: It depends on our personality, I would not use the word stop, because we deny longing more often, i.e. we throw ourselves into the vortex of work, for example, so as not to think and not to feel. Only that if we do not let this feeling into awareness, we will not experience it, the longing will continue for us. And any pretext will reactivate it, making us sad.
KK: Although human adaptation abilities can be enormous. A painful and extreme example is the concentration camps. As for emigration, if we have difficulties with adaptation, which will be combined with a great longing, some will be forced to return, others will be forced to seek help from a psychologist. For example, someone will be helped by the decision “I’ll last two years” and counting the days to the end like in the army.
In the times of facebook and skype it is probably easier to endure?
KK: Theoretically, we can see each other, talk to each other every day, but the Internet is not a substitute for live contact, and ultimately there can be great frustration when you want to hug someone instead of talking. It’s good that there are such inventions today, but the pain of migration is not so easy to heal …
How can you help yourself?
K.K.: Longing is a normal, natural feeling and it is worth experiencing it, not running away from it. People often fear that if they miss them, they’ll get depressed. It’s not like that. Confronting unpleasant emotions teaches us that we can deal with them, that they are an integral part of life. Less enjoyable, but a cleansing and upbuilding life experience. A man who is frozen to negative situations lives in a bubble, and when this bubble bursts, it is a flood of tears and suffering. I meet patients who report because of their longing for their ex-partner, overwhelming. We start to work deeper and suddenly it turns out that it is also a longing for an absent, overworked or deceased parent. It is similar with emigration.
And on it do we miss our old home, relatives, homeland, or some kind of vague memory?
K.K.: It may be a longing for some of our imaginations. Time, or rather the brain, distorts the past. For our sake, it erases bad memories that burden the nervous system. Therefore, we can idealize what was, remember only what is good. When there is a return to a place from the past, confrontation can be painful. In many of us, there is a longing for the carefree time of childhood. In the fast-paced life, in the rat race, we dream of peace, holidays in the countryside. And if it happens, we can’t put down the phone or laptop. After a few days, the peace and quiet begin to irritate us. As adults, we are already different people, sometimes we experience the so-called false memories, that is, the belief that it was once fabulous, although it was not – just like in Brooklyn.
And how do we miss when we are actually still children?
KK: Children adapt to new conditions much faster. The smaller the child, the faster he will be able to cope with the new situation. It will miss you less. Often my patients ask me whether to wait with the divorce until the child is older, they say that then it will be easier to endure. It is the other way around.
RK: We adults can rationalize the situation, our choice. The baby won’t do it. He does not understand why he cannot fulfill his desire, go back to what he longs for.
How much time for pain after moving to another country, and when to recognize that emigration is not for us after all?
K.K.: Time is relative – for someone it may be a year, for others it may be a month. It is worth coming back if we feel that we have really done everything in our power to get used to emigration, and our well-being is downhill. It is not worth destroying mental health with depression or psychosomatic disorders – physical disorders of a psychological basis are a frequent phenomenon among immigrants, including psoriasis, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcers.
Does the emigration longing have any stages, e.g. analogous to those appearing in mourning?
KK: Yes, it is similar. It begins with denial – “No, I don’t miss you at all. I will visit my family often, “then there is anger and a feeling of helplessness -” I’m fed up, I’m coming back! “Until you think:” I miss my family home, but I want to live here “, that is, accepting the situation. Without constantly glorifying the past and without pretending that the past wasn’t there. This is what it is with mourning.
We can always visit our previous place of residence, in mourning we have no chance of meeting a loved one. At least not in this world.
KK: For this specific type of emigration longing, the term nostalgia (nostos from Greek – return home, algos- pain) was coined. Watching Brooklyn I was thinking about Poles living in the UK. Like the heroine of the film, they have a lot of contradictory feelings about them. On the one hand, they would like to go home, and on the other, they definitely would not.
And when should these feelings be considered pathology?
KK: When we are completely unable to cope emotionally, because we miss our family hysterically. We are constantly calling us, although we are not hurt and we are not separated by an exorbitant distance. In the film, people are divided by the ocean, it happens that someone moves from their parents to another district and cannot be an adult at all. He misses his room with his parents, the warm rolls that Dad brought from the store in the morning, and the fact that his mother knew how to comfort him best. This is emotional nostalgia, not for the apartment or parents, but for childhood. It can lead to emotional disturbance.
Is it safer for such people to cut off your roots?
The former emigration of Poles probably lives in their own “ghettos”, and the young try to assimilate?
K.K.: It is the other way around. Young people are more adapted to multiculturalism thanks to the Internet, language skills, and living in a world of open borders. And yet the most important thing is what our character and purpose are. If someone comes only to earn and return, he will treat it as a task and will not be interested in building a friendship in a new place.
What can we suggest to those who want to stay longer?
RK: It is worth looking for positive experiences in a new place. Discover opportunities that we did not have in our homeland, take advantage of the change in social status due to higher earnings, look for people who are favorable to us among those newly met. This will facilitate adaptation.
KK: Of course, you should read, for example, Polish books or the Polish press, but also be open to new things, to get to know a different culture. And the language! Nothing isolates us like a reluctance to deepen our knowledge of the country we live in. If we make such a “ghetto”, there is a high risk that it will “break” at some point, because, for example, we will fall out with other Poles. Then we have no one to talk to, go out for a beer. Not knowing the language, we will fearfully run home when someone talks to us.
What about souvenirs – to store or throw away?
RK: Some emigrants take with them a piece of their homeland in the form of a “talisman”, like the heroes of the film “Sami Swoi” – a bag with soil. Others cut themselves off from their homeland. The legitimacy of the choice depends on the individual psychological structure.
K.K.: It is worth having souvenirs and taking care of them, but in moderation. There are people who, for example, after the death of a loved one, do not put their things in order for years. For example, the room looks as if that person still lives in it. It is not good for us, because it does not allow us to survive the mourning to the end, that is, until we accept that this person is no longer with us, that they will not come back.
RK: In the case of immigrants who have managed to adopt in a healthy way in a new environment, contact with their homeland will be pleasant, but not necessary. And those who have failed to do so will, for example, constantly seek contact with their homeland, and thus only fuel their longing. It’s good to have a loved one in a new place, because lonely immigration can be a terrible experience. Although sometimes it is the other way around – it may suit somebody’s hand. Unfortunately, there are few laws in psychology that apply to all people. Or maybe fortunately?
Katarzyna Kucewicz, psychologist and psychotherapist, runs the Kucewicz & Piotrowicz psychotherapy center in Warsaw.
Radoslaw Kucharski, psychologist, runs the Psychological Cabinet Radosław Kucharski in Wrocław