The Fear of Immigrants

Abstract

The presence and growing visibility of racial minority immigrants in the United States and across the globe has triggered a sense of collective anxiety, where dissociative defenses maintain emotional distance and identification with groups perceived to be threatening. Fringe movements and mainstream political parties have framed immigrants and refugees as the major cause of unemployment, crime, and a threat to their cultural and social fabric. Recent policies in the United States, such as those resulting in heightened policing of Black and Brown people and deportation of undocumented immigrants and separation of children from parents, have made explicit the connection between racism and xenophobia. These macrolevel policies and the broader xenophobic and racist sociopolitical climate in which they are implemented have important implications for intrapsychic life and interpersonal relationships. This paper explores psychoanalytic perspectives on the roots of xenophobia, racialized defenses, and their implications for the experiences of racial minority immigrants in the United States. The paper further addresses how the fear of immigrants reflects anxiety in multiple dimensions, involving not only fears of the receiving context or the host country, but also the xenophobia that immigrants carry with them from their countries of origin. The implications of xenophobia and racism are explored in the context of the therapeutic relationship, where the client and the therapist engage in difficult and emotionally charged ways with respect to the current sociopolitical climate. Clinical examples are provided to illustrate transference and countertransference dynamics, and related dilemmas centered on xenophobia and racism that arise in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Full text

The Fear of Immigrants
Pratyusha Tummala-Narra, PhD
Boston College
The presence and growing visibility of racial minority immigrants in the United States and across the
globe has triggered a sense of collective anxiety, where dissociative defenses maintain emotional distance
and identification with groups perceived to be threatening. Fringe movements and mainstream political
parties have framed immigrants and refugees as the major cause of unemployment, crime, and a threat
to their cultural and social fabric. Recent policies in the United States, such as those resulting in
heightened policing of Black and Brown people and deportation of undocumented immigrants and
separation of children from parents, have made explicit the connection between racism and xenophobia.
These macrolevel policies and the broader xenophobic and racist sociopolitical climate in which they are
implemented have important implications for intrapsychic life and interpersonal relationships. This paper
explores psychoanalytic perspectives on the roots of xenophobia, racialized defenses, and their impli-
cations for the experiences of racial minority immigrants in the United States. The paper further addresses
how the fear of immigrants reflects anxiety in multiple dimensions, involving not only fears of the
receiving context or the host country, but also the xenophobia that immigrants carry with them from their
countries of origin. The implications of xenophobia and racism are explored in the context of the
therapeutic relationship, where the client and the therapist engage in difficult and emotionally charged
ways with respect to the current sociopolitical climate. Clinical examples are provided to illustrate
transference and countertransference dynamics, and related dilemmas centered on xenophobia and racism
that arise in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
Keywords: xenophobia, racism, immigrants, racial minorities, sociopolitical climate
Xenophobia has been defined as the “fear and hatred of strang-
ers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign,” that is
connected to nationalism and ethnocentrism, or the belief that a
certain nation, state, or community is superior to others (Merriam-
Webster Online Dictionary, n.d.;Yakushko, 2009). Studies con-
cerning majority groups’ contact with immigrants suggest that the
presence of larger numbers of immigrants is associated with fewer
xenophobic attitudes within local contexts, but in broader state and
national contexts, a greater presence of immigrants can exacerbate
xenophobia, due to increased perceptions of threat (Jolly & DiGi-
usto, 2014). In the United States and in other parts of the world the
presence and growing visibility of racial minority immigrants have
triggered a sense of collective anxiety, where dissociative defenses
maintain emotional distance and identification with groups per-
ceived to be threatening (Ainslie, 2009a;Bromberg, 2010).
Rather than carrying a neutral position, xenophobia carries
“discriminatory potential” (Watts, 1996, p. 97) that is linked with
economic, social, and political instability and the perception of
loss of resources (Yakushko, 2009). Importantly, xenophobia is
experienced in intrapsychic life and in interpersonal encounters in
ways that have become increasingly problematic in many parts of
the world, including the United States. This paper explores how
the fear of immigrants reflects anxiety within multiple dimensions.
Specifically, xenophobia involves not only the fears of majority
groups within the receiving context or the host country, but also
fears that immigrants carry with them from their countries of
origin. It further reflects the inevitable loss and disappointment,
traumatic stress, and shifts in identity produced in an immigrant’s
adjustment to living in the new, adoptive country. While the
problems of xenophobia and racism are longstanding and have
always been relevant to the experiences of clients and therapists, it
is critical to better understand the ways in which they manifest in
contemporary U.S. context, as explicit forms of anti-immigrant
sentiment and racist acts increasingly impact the intrapsychic and
interpersonal lives of racial minority immigrants and the broader
social fabric of the United States. This paper examines particular
manifestations of present-day xenophobia and its connection to
racism in the United States, the effects of xenophobia and racism
on the lives of racial minority immigrants, and how psychoanalytic
perspectives can facilitate an understanding of xenophobia in
psychotherapy. Clinical case vignettes offer illustrations of the
ways in which xenophobia and racism pose dilemmas for the client
and therapist in the therapeutic process.
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in the Present
Sociopolitical Climate
Many therapists today are struggling with how to address mul-
tiple forms of social injustice, sociocultural trauma, and political
polarization in the United States. Solomonov and Barber (2018),in
a recent study, examined the effects of the U.S. presidential elec-
This article was published Online First May 9, 2019.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Pratyusha
Tummala-Narra, PhD, Department of Counseling, Developmental and
Educational Psychology, Boston College, 319 Campion Hall, 140 Com-
monwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467. E-mail: tummalan@bc.edu
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Psychoanalytic Psychology
© 2019 American Psychological Association 2020, Vol. 37, No. 1, 50– 61
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