The mental health of migrant people: Western medical systems facing a globalized society

Abstract

The mental health of migrant populations represents a challenge for the cultural and organizational assumptions of Western welfare systems, and it touches on and problematizes forms of civil coexistence in democratic societies. Starting from scientific literature analysis, the article discusses how the scientific debate is marked by theoretical and methodological characterizations that affect the understanding and representation of the phenomenon and influence the construction and the stability of social and personal identity of migrant people. The prevalence of the refugee and asylum-seeking population in samples of epidemiological studies and the distorted representation of the actual mental health conditions of the majority of migrants are discussed. Methodological choices, in particular the frequent use of standardized data collection tools and classification systems of medical-psychiatric derivation, tends to neglect the phenomenological and etiological heterogeneity of the phenomenon.