Nearly one quarter of Arab immigrants suffer the Immigrant Syndrome with chronic and multiple stress

Achotegui was the first person who used the word Ulysses Syndrome to describe the common effects that affect immigrant people.
Achotegui was the first person who used the word Ulysses Syndrome to describe the common effects that affect immigrant people.
Research
(03/11/2014)

A PhD thesis read at the Faculty of Psychology concludes that nearly one quarter of immigrants from Arabic countries suffer the Immigrant Syndrome (Ulysses Syndrome) . It is characterised by chronic and multiple stress produced by forced family break-ups, loneliness, radical social exclusion, fear and defencelessness. The author of the thesis is Mozdalifa Elkheir, lecturer at the University of Kordofan (Sudan) and the University of Barcelona, where she participates in the postgraduate programme in Mental Health and Psychological Intervention with Immigrants, Refugees and Minorities offered at the Faculty of Psychology.

Achotegui was the first person who used the word Ulysses Syndrome to describe the common effects that affect immigrant people.
Achotegui was the first person who used the word Ulysses Syndrome to describe the common effects that affect immigrant people.
Research
03/11/2014

A PhD thesis read at the Faculty of Psychology concludes that nearly one quarter of immigrants from Arabic countries suffer the Immigrant Syndrome (Ulysses Syndrome) . It is characterised by chronic and multiple stress produced by forced family break-ups, loneliness, radical social exclusion, fear and defencelessness. The author of the thesis is Mozdalifa Elkheir, lecturer at the University of Kordofan (Sudan) and the University of Barcelona, where she participates in the postgraduate programme in Mental Health and Psychological Intervention with Immigrants, Refugees and Minorities offered at the Faculty of Psychology.

Elkheir has developed her study with a sample composed by three-hundred immigrants from Arabic countries who live in Catalonia. The thesis proves that, in the case of Arab immigration, there are additional problems related to xenophobia, racism and increasing islamophobia.

Elkheirʼs thesis, entitled Síndrome dʼUlisses, aculturació i personalitat en una població dʼimmigrants àrabs, was supervised by UB lecturers Maria Jayme and Joseba Achotegui. In fact, Achotegui was the first person who used the word Ulysses Syndrome to describe the common effects that affect immigrant people. The name comes from The Odyssey, the poem that describes Ulyssesʼ long journey through the Mediterranean in his search for Ithaca.

Achotegui emphasizes that research studies “must be made in immigrantsʼ native language and it is necessary to understand their cultural characteristics”. He says that “the collaboration between the University of Khartoum and the University of Barcelona is a model to be considered in order to strengthen cooperation in interculturality, rapprochement of cultures and shared sensitivity towards immigrantsʼ sufferings and the extreme situations they usually experience”.