DESTINY OF THE FOREIGNER TO BE [1]

Our psychotherapeutic experience in handling immigrant patients tends to bring us to this following conclusion- In most cases, those patients already were seen as «foreigners» in their own countries. We would then have to go back to what we consider being «the place of a foreigner,» here in our country.

According to us, migration is an actual socio-economic phenomenon, which consists of possibly crossing least one border and opens up the unknown destinies of the so-called foreigners. The concept of «foreigner» has definitely been conceived, effective and made possible. Therefore it’s in that perspective we used the title «foreigner to be», knowing that if the accomplishment of the foreigner’s destiny isn’t yet, it is very close to be for the economic/ circumstantial reasons that we mentioned above. As substantial as they can be, and that is what we will try to contemplate in this study, the effects resulting from crossing a border are not univocal. As it always happens for a reason, crossing a border can result to either the best or the worst. In addition, we must clarify that the option of crossing a border may not be directly linked to the initial status of the foreigner in his home country. For some people, crossing a border introduces them to a level of freedom that no one has yet experienced. For others, crossing will turn out to be ill fated.

Now, what do we mean by «a foreigner at home» ?

We will contemplate this issue on an individual and personal basis. Instead of focusing on «being different»: (being a foreigner because one would be different from Others), we would rather focus on the essence of what unites One with the Others.)

This way, in psychosis, we acknowledge the existence of a relationship with the Others although it does not correspond to common standards. This atypical aspect makes the relationship psychotic and phenomenally new to Others. In the case of neurosis, the relationship remains atypical but people live it as oddness in regards to Oneself. Oddness to Others, and oddness in regards to Oneself.

Everything apparently seems to differentiate both ways of living in this world. They have one thing in common; beyond the issues of Others and oneself, both methods suggest the existence of a greater one.

Thus, in their own ways neurosis and psychosis establish those relationships with both structures. By maintaining and perpetuating their relationship with the Other, both methods make its demands durable. While the Other is purely constructed, both structures give it an essence. Eventually, the quality of absolute oddness goes back to the Other, as it is based on nothing. The subject establishes a relationship with the Other, which makes the relationship odd: hence, psychosis and neurosis correspond to the place of the stranger.

Let us take a broader look at the place of the stranger

We are brought to believe that both cultural domination and acculturation are inseparable because there is no pacific acculturation. In the case of cultural domination, it would be more accurate and less hypocritical to call it by its own name, and then go beyond the classical idea of a progressive westernization of the world. From now on, this phenomenon seems to have gone beyond the West, especially beyond the economic control of the world: the system does not make a difference between races. It is an abstract idea that transcends races, an idea that does not know the existence of frontiers and finally an idea that remains terribly inoperative and difficult to control. For that reason, one can feel like a foreigner in one’s own country. This is the way in which cultures collide with each other in their own land, the same way they stumble against the stranglehold of the system, a system that not only represents the resources and the lifeblood of the country but a system that also represents beliefs, customs and traditions that have always lived them up until now.

Such is one way of understanding the place that the foreigner already has in his or her own country.

The issue of crossing borders

Following this preliminary study, we can now look at the question of crossing borders and its consequences. What is a border? For this case, we could think of it as a topological vision or a representation of space. But, why?
With regard to all States, a border is a breaking point. It is the point where a law or a language stops. How do we stop applying this law, or speaking this language? Given these previous facts, the answer is simple: there are customs in every border.
As regards the psyche, Freud had recourse to a spatial representation of the mind. (Overall, there could be an educational need or a more general frame of the human psyche etc. I will let you think about it.

In his Introduction to Psychoanalysis, Freud gives the following analogy: the subconscious is similar to a large antechamber joined to two other rooms. The first one, which is a narrow living room, represents the conscious. The other room which surface is undetermined represents the preconscious. A guard, which stands at the doorstep of the preconscious, controls movements between the antechamber and the two other rooms. Freud recognizes the naïve and simplistic nature of this imagery; but when we consider the psychological consequences of migration, overstepping that threshold which particularly represents crossing the border, indeed has a heuristic value.

We believe that crossing a border has to have a psychological effect. We will later bring clinical data, which go even further in that logic. However, our opinion not only leans on clinical data, but on more speculation. What does that mean? We have mentioned thereof the relationship that everyone has with the authority called The Great Other. Migration raises the issue of possibly passing from an Other to another Other.

There is another hypothesis, which is as solid. We have suggested that having recourse to the spatial representation of the mind was not an educational fact of Freud’s theory, but it also called for the human mind whether the latter were temporary or subsequently secondary. In its own way, Lacan’s stage of the mirror puts an emphasis on this more or less durable overstepping that is marked by the spatial representation of a psychological structure.
Yet, at his own level, the migrant puts spatial dialectics into practice. Such leaves us to wonder if that practice that tightly recovers the spatial dialectics of the psyche would not take over the migrant’s psyche instead of some of his essential modes of action and operation. That was the second theory that guides our analysis. We would equally well assimilate the migrant’s crossing to overstepping this threshold, which delimits different psychological spaces. As we have seen it, at the threshold lie the main issue of censor, as well as setting up the psyche’s vital defense mechanisms such as repression, which to us, constitutes the paradigm. With regard to this, psychiatry speaks about this matter. Let us take the case of sexual tourism in western societies. Most of these tourists, contrarily to others “allow” themselves to experience a sexuality that they would have never imagined if they had stayed in their own country.

We need to bear in mind those men who have incestuous relationships with their daughter. However, in both cases a border is being crossed whether it is moral, geographical, or cultural. The guard missed to notice a "thing", which is usually suppressed. Now what would that «thing» consist of?

We made a distinction within the concept of resistance, from which we have taken out what belongs to social repression and what belongs to the fact of resisting the possible loss of personal pleasure. This is a first explanation. There, when far away from the laws from home, the guard is blinded. Since he cannot identify unwanted visitors, he lets them pass through.

But that explanation seems insufficient, especially for the case of incest in a sense that prohibiting it applies to all cultures. We are conscious that it remains a universal prohibition. Therefore, a back up explanation is necessary. We can begin the outline of the explanation; the guard of the frontier would be blind in fact; it is not only a moral blindness but also a blindness vis-à-vis the acknowledgement of desire.

Surely, we must not only recognize censor work as a social watch, but also as a language work. This would mean that this condensation and displacement, which Freud put in evidence, come from the interpretation of dreams. This work concerns desire and an association of sexual desire with language. Thus, we will be analyzing the following hypothesis: 1_ Knowing that censor along with the notion of crossing borders would not be able to operate on the representation of desire, the consequence would be the liberty of displaying sexual urges, in which the subject takes action without having a say in it. In other words, in this context crossing the border is not seen as a kind of repression just for the fact that repressing is no longer possible. Then how can we understand the dysfunction of censor ? 2_ We have mentioned that frontiers could represent the limit which separates two great other antagonists. Language rests upon these Others and anything that could constitute its drive, such as single and common history. Such is the Other, a place for memory. What completes the notion of structure? The Other, a body with urges they depend on the union we have established between that body and the Other. Our theory will say that when an Other passes through another Other due to the medley of spoken languages, censor which is tightly linked to the Other ( because it constitutes the linguistic reference from which the work is conceived), is seriously disturbed. We will now introduce the clinical case on which we will rely to define this disturbance.

The case of M. C.
The first time we met M. C., he was 64 years old. He had been living and working in France for 20 years. His family remained in Turkey. He is a married man, a father and a grandfather with several grandchildren. He retired 4 years ago. Why does he still remain in France ? He replied that within 9 months, he would be 65 and he would then collect his retirement pension.

What problem would then bring C. to psychiatry?

Let us precise that he did not come deliberately. A medical service recommended him to us. The problems began 3 months before, and we will explain what they deal with. He insists that a man- an Arab is practicing black magic on him. Every night, for three moths, that Arab blows on a fire that magically burns C., who feels painful sensations in his body. What does C. say about his persecutor? A few but important things; both men lived together. They both arrived in France the same year and finally seven years after, the man borrow money from C. who refused to do him that favor. He resents debts because money means a lot to C. That is even the reason why he left his country and why he delays his return date back home. What does C. expect from us? Apparently, he is not requesting therapy. He is asking, and he will always ask that we witness to the police that he is a victim of black magic. When we propose that he speaks about it, he responds: «I am here to accuse someone, not to talk.»

Facing his invincible determination, we decide to treat C. with Haldol in outpatient care. That treatment changed no conviction of his. A remarkable fact is that during C’s entire treatment, C was absolutely had no faith in us. Truthfully, we thought he was a brave man who cared about his family and friends, sensitive and warm. It is quite a strange impression we had, given our suspicions of paranoia etc...!

But did C. try traditional treatments ? Yes he did. His différent attempts with the Odja never turned out successful. Then again, despite all the successive failures, he had nothing to say, absolutely no vindictiveness. One day, without giving us any explanation, C. stopped coming to his sessions for three months. Then he reappears willingly this time.

What did he do meanwhile? Did he visit his family in Turkey and saw the Odea again, and once again with no success? He opens his vest and we could see about 10 musk of various colors pending on his lining. Then he mumbled sadly: «It is not going to change anything». Knowing that his father passed few years ago, I asked through the interpreter if he confided his problems to his brothers. That was when we got real information from him. let us see what it deals with.
I realized that he did not do anything about that. C. does not trust his brothers partly because they do not have the same mother. Before correcting himself, he made a mistake by stating that his brothers and himself did not have the same father. I also found out that C. had a real brother, and from the same mother this time, but he passed away at the age of 22 from illness. Back in the days, C suffered a lot from the that loss : « «We could have stayed together until death do us part »,» he says about this brother called Ismael.

The name Ismael immediately in our minds. We remembered that infact, Ismael was the son of Abraham and Agar the servant. The arab nation considers him as their ancestor. We gathered further information and found out that Mohamed had placed Ismael at the top of his genealogy. Finally, we were able to establish a link between delirium and this man. There were more connections between the Arab persecutor and Ismael, the dead brother.

From that moment, we did not know that we would only see C. twice. The following session, he stated that he slept better but that did not prevent him from being persecuted by the « Arab ». He said that the latter was young and strong. We asked randomly if the arab was not 22 years old, and C instantly replied to the obvious absurdity «« my deceased brother is the one who was »». He added that the Arab man was certainly not «« a fool ».»

During the last session, C. confirmed that he slept much bette rand even began to tell about his dreams. He said he dreamt about his brother Ismael. But at the same time, he corrected himself and said : « no, it was not Ismael but my family . My family is alone there and I am lonely her ». He finally sighed : «« I am old now, I am tired of making food for myself only »». There was an intense emotion on his face. He recalls the persecution again. A surprising fact is that he designates his persecutor as ARKADASH, pronounced (arkadashe), which means friend in Turkish. This word takes root from KARDES (kardèsh), which means brother. If we go further in our etymological research, we find out that the word Kardes comes from KARINDAS (karinedash), which precisely designates people who have come from the same stomach. That stomach is the place where none of C’s brother have shared, and the one who shared it with him had gone forever.

At the end of that session, C. announced that by the end of that week, he would go back to Turkey again. Before leaving, he said with a lot of hesitation, «« Perhaps I will come back next september »».

Comments on C.’s case and conclusion

That was C’s story. We hope that next september, he will change his mind, not take the plane back to Strasbourg a.nd live a peaceful life among his people dead or alive. We will not insist on bereavement. Let us just say that when C. came to France, he probably brought a dead person along in his suitcase. Surely, we mean he brought his rother Ismael whose bereavement had not been accomplished. Finally, this theory is not a complète analysis of C.’s story. This unfinished bereavement is just an epiphenomenon of a complex shock that touches this one on the question of the father : the slip of the tongue that we noted seems relevant to that issue, because our goal here is to put an emphasis on the possible border crossing.

I think we have kept the same approach in this case. Previously, after laying out different arguments, we suppose that the brother Ismael has come back to C.’s actual and day-to-day reality by embodying the Arab persecutor.

A psychiatric classic aprehension would certainly qualify this delirium as a paranoid persecution with prevalent cenesthetic hallucinations. Une appréhension psychiatrique classique qualifierait certes ce tableau de délire de persécution paranoïaque avec prévalente d’hallucinations d’ordre cénésthésique. Andy et, we are cautious with psychiatry and classical theories.

We have already said that C. never considered us as the bad people. It is also clear that this delirium fits in a particular timeframe. The one that precedes the action of crossing the border backwards. This lets us think that the first crossing is happening again. So, we propose that this situation is only psychotic in surface. Nous proposons donc que ce tableau n’aurait de psychotique que l’allure. The delirious phenomena we noted does not deal with debarment of the name of the father, but the desitution of an Other, which means depriving oneself of a funtion for the benefit of an Other. The Other then, operates with a designating funtion when the function of the first subject whose subject is deprived for good, consists of representing the subject for another signifier. What about that ?

1_ This means that a signifier, capable of operating language movements and the necessary condensation of the mechanism of repression is substituted by the tyrany of the sign. The sign of latter which no longer presents the subject but puts him in the position of a stranger who becomes it unconsciously, dominates him. The signifier represents and the sign dominates. The first one allows internal repression , the second call the designation externally.

2_ There is another way of realizing the relationship between dominant and dominated, which is underlined in the concept of culture. It also seems excessive to place this domination at the center of the psychotic destiny of non- westerners, immigrants. The border as we said, puts an end to a law. This an incomplete definition, but the border is not a place of peace ( when peace comes in, it no longer needs to exist). On the contrary, the border represents that place of privilege where resides the spirits of law. If crossing the border means getting exposed (or offering oneself) to the glazing place that feeds off the Others’ deadly battles. When going to the battlefield, some will get out of it safe, and others are slightly or seriously wounded or just die.

3_ C. sulrely was wounded while crossing the border. What were the consequences of the wounds of his stay in France ? We do not have an answer to that question. Anyhow, we can thing say that his continuous incapacity to express himself in French is one of the causes.

From a different perspective, we know that the wound reopened when the time came to cross the border again. C repeatedly stated that an Arab man kept persecuted him suddenly. This definitely has to be said. In that persecution, must we detect a conflict where the master does not want to free the slave ? Why not ? Although C speaks his mother tongue during some sessions, we witness to the emergence of another Other that made C. speak differently. That Other made him have a slip of the tongue, made him think of his enemy as a brother and finally made him get his sleep back (a waking désire).

We feel that desire through his speech even if the sense of the speech remains discreet, not chased away like before, but repressed. In fact, in C., we see that the persecuting designation is ready to switch to signified channels and repression is ready to switch to persecution.

Now, through Mr C.’s story, we have evoked one of the possible destinies of the foreigner to be. This one may have indicated the most secrete depths, their effects and their construction which, still need to be explored a lot further.

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