The culture we are surrounded by everyday and the situations and lifestyle we have, can greatly impact the way we can cope with the world around us and how we may feel comfortable doing so. An estimated seventy to one hundred and fifty million people around the world are currently displaced from their homes because of war, genocide, social and economic turmoil, poverty, religious diversities, deportation and natural disasters. These millions of people are known as “refugees” and come to other places for safety and livelihood after having been through tremendous events and cultural shocks. This post will focus on the environmental changes refugees undergo by uprooting their lives as well as relating to the social learning theory.
Refugees are a pretty broad group of people, all sharing similar changes in environment and reasoning’s behind how they became refugees. Refugees come from all over the world and have experienced a tremendous amount of loss, grief and an array of other circumstances that have affected their lives. Today the majority of the refugees are women, children and handicapped people, and most are refugees from Africa, Asia, The Middle East, Central America, Eastern Europe and Russia. Understanding a refugee as opposed to an immigrant is a first step in helping to understand them. A refugee is someone whom is forced to leave due to impeding and life threatening situations, whereas an immigrant comes because of their own free will or desire to do so. The next step is to understand the many different nationalities, cultures, religions and so forth these people have derived from or continually practice.
Culture is a broad subject matter as it can be formed from many aspects of a person’s surroundings. Things such as home environment, overall environment, religion, beliefs, attitudes, money, customs and traditions, as well as, location can have drastic impacts on a person and what is “normal” living to them and therefore what type of counseling they may need or so desire. Refugees have usually undergone tremendous ordeals, thus gaining refugee statuses in foreign lands. Everything they know is no longer part of their lives, so as one can imagine it is a rough and challenging time.
The environment in which we live has a keen affect on our customs, values, traditions, and social norms. To be stripped of all the environmental influence we once had can most certainly affect an individual psychologically and socially. If we take into account Bandura’s social learning theory and apply it to refugees, chances are within a period of time the refugees would adapt their behavior to their surroundings through the observation of other’s behavior and attitudes. It may not be their innate desire to conform to the behaviors of other citizens of their host country, but fitting in is often a large driving force.
Blackwell, Dick. Counseling and Psychotherapy with Refugees. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. (2005).
Chaney, David. Cultural Change and Everyday Life. Palgrave Macmillan. (2002).
Counseling Refugees: A Psychosocial Approach to Innovative Multicultural Interventions (Book). (2003). International Migration Review.
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-1412976381