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In May 2019, the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy met for its annual conference entitled “Crossing Frontiers - Flight Displacement and Migration in Forensic Psychiatry”. It took place in the extensive grounds of the Reichenhau Centre for Psychiatry, Konstanz University, Germany. The conference explored the particular issues relating to the psychodynamic treatment of migrating populations seeking asylum on our borders and shores and was organised by Tilman Kluttig and colleagues from the university.
The early years of psychoanalysis were fraught with war, persecution, migration, genocide, and human displacement and this conference was a graphic and timely reminder that these issues remain alive today.
Persecution and fear of the “other” have haunted human history as far back as we can know. Human beings have always had the tendency to persecute “strangers” in our midst. In his plenary presentation, Professor Klaus Hoffman informed us that there are now approximately sixty-eight million refugees worldwide; the highest number since the first world war. Professor Hoffman put forward the notion of peace as a “middle-class luxury”; because many of our economies are driven by the weapons industry, itself a significant presence on the shores of Lake Constance, facilitating the lifestyles we enjoy in the West. He further highlighted that the real cost of middle-class life includes the mental disorders suffered by the refugee patients we are treating.
In her opening lecture, our life president and founder Estela Welldon reflected on the troubling description of immigration as “a social disease”. Just as in forensic settings there are three people in the therapy room: the therapist, the patient, and the forensic institution; there is a third person, in the form of society, present when working with immigrant populations who have been, and continue to be, traumatised by societies. Estela suggested that keeping this in mind is essential to help further our under