Book Description

Emigration is a psychological process of transitional change. It filters through everything, ripples across your world - often a devastating experience, but also a soul-searching journey where you may find that your destination does not necessarily lie in the city in which you will have arrived, but at a place much more personal, somewhere deep within you. This unique, timely and thought-provoking book looks at what and why emigration works for some, but not for others. It highlights the meaning of your endless yearning for loved ones back home, the intensity of loss experienced on various levels of your life, and the interaction between the different cycles, with their unique phases that run parallel, overlap, lapse and relapse. There are your own developmental phases, those of your family members individually, those of families as units going through their own cycles of development and change, and those of the family who had to stay behind. How do these different, but so similar, entities come together in the emigration melting pot, especially when you are exposed to the impact of culture shock? The book explains the link between the psychological, neurological and immunological aspects when you experience the intensity of emigration stress and its impact on you. It helps you to identify those issues beneath the surface that you have never realized exist, and you learn how to cope in order to make it work in the new country. You will understand the powerful role of social, emotional and spiritual intelligence in shaping your new life. It suggests new and effective ways of coping and it motivates you towards greater understanding of living as being a mindset. A powerful book for the emigrant, his/her family back home, and the professional alike - comprehensively written by Christa de Vries, an immigrant and professional herself.