Argument for Issue No. 34: MIGRATIONS

International Journal of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis

The Psychic Journey of Migration: Subjectivity, Uprooting, and the Transformation of Transgenerational Legacy in the Couple and the Family

Psychoanalytic Argument

In addressing the vast and complex theme of MIGRATIONS for the 34th issue of the International Journal of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, we aim to explore the profound psychic and relational implications that these displacements have on the constitution of the family group and the couple. We invite the entire community interested in the subject of Migration, the Couple, and the Family from a psychoanalytic perspective, to submit articles to the coordinators of this issue. Submissions are accepted in Spanish, French, or English, and must include an abstract in all three languages as well as keywords. The deadline for reception is March 15, 2026; publication guidelines can be found on the journal’s website.

These displacements include those who migrate in pursuit of a dream, those displaced by transnational work dynamics, and those who form bicultural marriages. Our objective is to maintain a psychoanalytic perspective centered on the couple and the family. We will take into account the collusion between current “political-social” trauma in certain cases of “forced” immigration (political persecution) and the reminiscence of prior family traumas, which are also imbued with societal issues (the “crypts” of N. Abraham and M. Torok). We consider R. Kaës’s writings on the collapse of social meta-frames (meta-encuadres) that affect their psychic counterparts, a theme he explores in his work “Le Malêtre” when referring to contemporary malaise. This “collapse” affects the envelopes (internal-external). We do not intend to present the topic as a political or sociological debate; instead, we will work clinically on the “collapse” of the external and internal limits, prioritizing the understanding of the migratory movement from the field of the bond. It is likely that there will be one or several clinical cases of forced immigration resulting from political or even societal persecution.

We conceive the migratory process as a true psychic journey, comparable to moments of family crisis and deconstruction. Freud (1923) refers to the Ego as the projection of a surface; by working on the theme of mourning, one can observe its effects on the decision to migrate and its consequences. The relationship of the ego with the other is a modeling foundation of subjectivity where the similar and the different are outlined. Migration is a crisis that mobilizes group regression and can acquire the intensity of what Berenstein and Puget describe as transformations that cross the passage from the “One” to the “Two”: the transition from rigid identities toward a linking field where difference and co-construction begin to take place. When this foundational process is interrupted by migration, the necessary crisis can transform into an abusive or disruptive period—a true emotional tsunami. Geographical displacement imposes uprooting and acutely activates transgenerational elements. Yet, like any crisis, it also opens possibilities for the reorganization and growth of the family group.

Subjectivity and Uprooting: Identity, Language, Culture, Assimilation, and Adaptation

The decision to migrate implies a profound subjective mobilization that affects the entire family system. Uprooting is not merely territorial: it involves a reactivation of the psychological heritage transmitted between generations. In this sense, Torok and Abraham describe how certain mournings, secrets, or encrypted traumas can be reactivated during displacement, acting as silent crypts that condition adaptation. The trauma of separation and the encounter with new cultural coordinates intensifies this movement. Families must simultaneously face their own historical marks and the demands of the new environment. This passage requires psychic strength to confront old sufferings, to open the unspoken, and to revise what has been inherited. In the new context, the couple and the family confront transformations in language, religion, and customs. These cultural differences activate the need to create new identities. Here, the unconscious alliances described by René Kaës—whether as structuring supports or restrictive defenses—manifest with particular clarity and can either facilitate or hinder the process of assimilation and adaptation. Subjects must psychically negotiate integration into the new country, maintaining a delicate balance between adaptation and internal preservation. This difficulty is manifest both in those who deny their origin and in those who cling rigidly to it.

The Transgenerational, Symbolic Effects, Biculturalism, and the Eternal Return

Migration is a powerful activator of inter-, multi-, and transgenerational dimensions. The new family revisits its heritage to reinscribe and transmit it. Abraham and Torok remind us that transmission is not limited to conscious content: silences, crypts, unelaborated mourning, and secret pacts are also inherited. Fragile identities or previous pathologies in the migrating couple can intensify this crisis. Within the couple’s bond, a field of symbolic recomposition is forged: a space where each individual’s heritage must find a way to articulate with the other’s to open new paths. Various authors develop this theme. Children born in the new country, living between cultures, embody that tension between what is received and what is new. They are the point where symbolic transformation condenses and where heritage is rewritten. Furthermore, bicultural marriages open visible and invisible loyalties to both the land of origin and the new land. These bonds can complicate processes of separation, divorce, and parental conflicts, especially when unresolved issues from previous generations insist on repeating themselves. In other cases, migration sustains the fantasy of return—a defense that allows the subject to endure the psychic effort involved in reconstructing emotional heritage in a new context.

Toward a Psychoanalytic Approach to the Migrant Group

The psychoanalytic approach to the couple and the family invites us to study how bonds, unconscious alliances, zones of transgenerational silence, and modes of constituting the linking field can favor or hinder the migratory transition. The goal is to identify group defenses, movements of distancing, communication failures, and the points where transgenerational legacy or family crypts condition the possibility of creating a new “us.”

Coordinators: 

Alejandro Tamez: alejandro@tamez.com.mx 

Elizabeth Palacios: elipalacios2609@gmail.com