Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-f97m6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-13T15:19:19.864Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Migration, culture and mental health1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

H. B. M. Murphy
H. B. M. Murphy*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
*
2Address for correspondence: Professor H. B. M. Murphy, Section of Transcultural Psychiatric Studies, 1266 Pine Avenue West, Montreal, QuebeC., Canada, H3G 1A8.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

The former belief that immigrants always suffer from an excess of mental disorder is no longer valid, and the old rivalry between social selection and social causation hypotheses has lost much of its relevance. The mental health of a migrant group is determined by factors relating to the society of origin, factors relating to the migration itself, and factors operating in the society of resettlement; and all three sets need to be considered if one seeks to reduce or merely to understand the level of mental disorder in any immigrant group. Illustrations from each set of factors are presented, with indications of whether they appear to have general relevance or be related to specific mental disorders.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , November 1977 , pp. 677 - 684
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

1

An earlier version of this paper was read at the International Congress on Transcultural Psychiatry, Bradford. England, 1976

References

Astrup, C. & Ødegaard, Ø. (1960). Internal migration and mental disease in Norway. Psychiatric Quarterly Supplement 34, 116–130.Google Scholar
Böker, W. (1975). Psychiatrie der Gastarbeiter. In Psychiatrie der Gegenwart III: Soziale und Angewandte Psychiatrie (ed. Kisker, K. P., Meyer, J.-E., Müller, C. and Strømgren, E.), pp. 429–466. Springer-Verlag: Berlin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carstairs, G. M. (1974). God-intoxicated youth: an Indian view of Western Bhaktis. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 8, 25–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, R. E. (1948). The relationship of schizophrenia to occupational income and occupational prestige. American Sociological Review 13, 325–353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cochrane, R. (1977). Mental illness in immigrants to England and Wales: an analysis of mental hospital admissions, 1971. Social Psychiatry 12, 25–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cochrane, R., Hashmi, F. & Stopes-Roe, M. (1976). Measuring psychological disturbance in Asian immigrants to Britain. Mimeographed, 23 pp.Google Scholar
Crocetti, G. M. (1971). Selected aspects of the epidemiology of the psychoses in Croatia, Yugoslavia; Part III. American Journal of Epidemiology 94, 126–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grob, G. N. (1965). The State and the Mentally III. University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Iida-Miranda, M. L. (1975). La relation entre les changements récents et les maladies chez les immigrants portugais à Montréal. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Montréal.Google Scholar
Krupinski, J., Stoller, A. & Wallace, L. (1973). Psychiatric disorders in Eastern European refugees now in Australia. Social Science and Medicine 7, 31–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Malzberg, B. (1940). Social and Biological Aspects of Mental Disease. State Hospitals Press: Utica.Google Scholar
Malzberg, B. & Lee, E. S. (1956). Migration and Mental Disease. Social Science Research Council: New York.Google ScholarPubMed
McClelland, D., Davis, W. N., Kalin, R. & Wanner, E. (1972). The Drinking Man. Free Press: New York.Google Scholar
Morgan, P. & Andrushko, E. (1976). Psychiatric hospitalization of foreign-born in Toronto: Is there a higher threshold for admission of immigrants? Mimeographed, 31 pp.Google Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. (1955). Flight and Resettlement. UNESCO: Paris.Google Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. (1959). Culture, society and mental disorder in South East Asia. M.D. Thesis, Edinburgh University.Google Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. (1961). Social change and mental health. In Causes of Mental Disorders: A Review of Epidemiological Knowledge, pp. 280–340. Milbank Memorial Foundation: New York.Google Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. (1965). Migration and the major mental disorders. In Mobility and Mental Health (ed. Kantor, M. B.), pp. 5–29. Charles C. Thomas: Springfield, Ill.Google Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. (1972 a). Psychiatric concomitants of fusion in plural societies. In Transcultural Research in Mental Health (ed. Lebra, W. P.), pp. 364–379. University of Hawaii Press: Honolulu.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. (1972 b). The evocative role of complex social tasks. In Genetic Factors in ‘Schizophrenia’ (ed. Kaplan, A. R.), pp. 407–422. Charles C.Thomas: Springfield, Ill.Google Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. (1973). Migration and the major mental disorders: A reappraisal. In Uprooting and After … (ed. Zwingmann, C. A. and Pfister-Ammende, M.), pp. 204–220. Springer-Verlag: New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. (1974). Mental health guidelines for immigration policy. International Migration 12, 333–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. (1975). Alcoholism and schizophrenia in the Irish: A review. Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review 12, 116–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ødegaard, Ø. (1932). Emigration and Insanity. Supplement No. 4 to Acta Psychiatrica Neurologica: Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Parker, S. & Kleiner, S. J. (1966). Mental Illness in the Urban Negro Community. Free Press: Glencoe, Ill.Google Scholar
Pflanz, M. (1971). Epidemiological and socio-cultural factors in the etiology of duodenal ulcer. Advances in Psychosomatic Medicine 6, 121–151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, G. B. (1913). Discussion on the causes of invaliding from the tropics. British Medical Journal ii, 1290–1297.Google Scholar
Ranney, M. H. (1850). On insane foreigners. American Journal of Insanity 7, 53–63.Google Scholar
Ruesch, J., Jacobson, A. & Loeb, M. B. (1948). Acculturation and Illness. American Psychological Association Monograph: Washington.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverman, I., Lief, V. F. & Shah, R. K. (1971). Migration and alcohol use; a careers analysis. International Journal of the Addictions 6, 195–213.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Srole, L., Langner, T. S., Michael, S. T., Opler, M. K. & Rennie, T. A. C. (1962). Mental Health in the Metropolis. McGraw-Hill: New York.Google Scholar
Stocks, P. (1968). Indications of a possible association between peptic ulcer and vascular lesions of the CNS. British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine 22, 206–211.Google Scholar
Selye, H. (1956). The Stress of Life. McGraw-Hill: New York.Google Scholar