(be)longing: A Search for Home at a railway station

Abstract

This paper elaborates the psychic processes evoked in migration through the illustration of therapy work with an eleven-year-old boy, whose family had relocated from a village in East India to the metropolis of Delhi, a city that has been home to refugees post-Partition, and numerous migrants seeking jobs and education since. The idea of choice migration is formulated, embedded in modern society and urban aspirations, as different from forced migrations. Drawing from object relations theory, the work of Winnicott and other contemporary thinkers, this boy’s unique use of a railway station as transitional object and its elaboration in therapy work is discussed.