RESUMO
Three case studies of immigrants to the US from China, Iraq, and Mexico were used to build a theory of acculturation in immigrants by integrating the continuing bonds model, which describes mourning in bereavement with the assimilation model, which describes psychological change in psychotherapy. Participants were interviewed about the loss of their native culture and their life in the US. One participant had not fully assimilated the loss of her native culture, but used her continuing bonds with her culture as a source of solace. Another participant used his continuing bonds with his culture as a source of solace, but these bonds had become a source of conflict with the host culture. The third participant had largely assimilated the loss of his native culture such that the voices of this culture were linked via meaning bridges with the voices of the host culture, and the continuing bonds were resources that helped him in his land of immigration.
Assuntos
Aculturação , Comparação Transcultural , Emigrantes e Imigrantes/psicologia , Apego ao Objeto , Identificação Social , Adulto , Asiático/psicologia , China/etnologia , Feminino , Pesar , Humanos , Entrevista Psicológica , Iraque/etnologia , Masculino , Americanos Mexicanos/psicologia , México/etnologia , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Preconceito , Valores Sociais , Estados UnidosRESUMO
This study examines Lisa, a successful case of emotion-focused therapy, using the assimilation model as a lens to view and understand her changes. The assimilation model construes problems as voices, or parts of the self, that are unwanted and kept separate from other voices in the community that constitute the self. Progress in therapy, then, is construed as increasing the assimilation or integration of problematic voices into the community. Lisa made significant progress assimilating two distinct but related voices, described as movement through the Assimilation of Problematic Experiences Sequence. In the course of the analysis, the case of Lisa also informed the assimilation model by raising issues concerning the interrelatedness of problems and the dynamic nature of assimilation in the context of a multivoiced self.