Abstract: This research considers an existential exploration of the experience of coming out in the Orthodox Jewish community. It is grounded in a qualitative, phenomenological and existential methodology. Eight participants were interviewed, all male between the ages of 20-30, who grew up in the Orthodox Jewish community and came out as gay, a minimum of three years ago. The interviews were semi-structured in nature; they were recorded and transcribed. The interview transcripts were analysed using SEA, a phenomenological and existential research tool. It used two specific features of SEA; the four worlds and its paradoxes, and the timeline tool. Accordingly, data was analysed against the four existential worlds, and the four periods of time identified in the timeline tool; with the moments of coming out being the present focus. Key themes, paradoxes and similarities were drawn out from across the analysis. They were then analysed alongside a consideration of relevant literature, also presented in this study. Overall, significant findings were identified, which both resonated with, supported and questioned existing literature. Findings were linked to four particular time periods: before, during and after coming out, and the ongoing state of participants. The findings relating to the time period before coming out mainly linked to matters around identity and findings linked to the actual moments of coming out mainly related to embodiment overall. The findings of the time period immediately after coming out linked to relationships and emotions, whereas the findings linking to the ongoing state of participants were to do with spirituality and meaning. This study concludes by outlining the valuable contribution these findings have made to Counselling Psychology, as well as areas that have been highlighted as ripe for further research.
Abstract: Research about the relation between migration and mental health as well as factors influencing the mental health of migrants has been growing because challenges of migration can constitute a significant mental health burden. However, its divergent findings seem to reflect group-specific differences, e.g., regarding country of origin and receiving country. Almost no empirical studies about individual migrant groups in different receiving countries have been undertaken so far. The present population-based study explores symptoms of depression, anxiety, and somatization as well as quality of life in an Austrian and a German sample of ex-Soviet Jewish migrants. We mainly investigate the relationship of religiosity and perceived xenophobic and anti-Semitic discrimination to the psychological condition of the migrants. Standardized self-report scales, specifically the Beck-Depression-Inventory-II (BDI), State-Trait-Anxiety-Inventory (STAI), Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), and WHO Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF), were used to measure mental health. Ex-Soviet Jewish migrants in Austria showed significantly more depression, anxiety, and somatic symptoms than those in Germany. Regression analyses support a protective effect of religiosity on mental health in the sample in Germany and an adverse effect of perceived discrimination in the sample in Austria. The present study reveals a less favorable situation for ex-Soviet Jewish migrants in Austria, in terms of income, residence status, and xenophobic attitudes in the local population, compared to the group in Germany. Furthermore, our data suggest that the receiving country matters for the mental health of this migrant group. However, further research is needed to support these conclusions.
Abstract: Migration, displacement, and flight are major worldwide phenomena and typically pose challenges to mental health. Therefore, migrants’ mental health, and the factors which may predict it, have become an important research subject. The present population-based cross-national comparison study explores symptoms of depression, anxiety, and somatization, as well as quality-of-life in samples of ex-Soviet Jewish migrants settling in three new countries: Germany, Austria and Israel, as well as in a sample of non-migrant ex-Soviet Jews in their country of origin, Russia. In the current study, we investigate the relationship of perceived xenophobiа and antisemitism, acculturation attitudes, ethnic and national identity, as well as affiliation with Jewish religion and culture to the psychological well-being of these migrants. Furthermore, we consider xenophobic and antisemitic attitudes as well as the acculturation orientation of the new countries’ societies, assessed in the native control samples. Our data suggest that attitudes of the new country’s society matter for the mental health of this migrant group. We conclude that the level of distress among ex-Soviet Jewish migrants seems to depend, among other factors, on the characteristics of the new country and/or specific interactions of the migrant population with the society they are settling in.
Abstract: Erinnern oder Vergessen? Auch Jahrzehnte nach der Shoah sind die Erfahrungen, die Bilder und die Leiden, die sich mit der Erinnerung an die nationalsozialistischen Verbrechen aufdrängen, keineswegs Geschichte geworden. Die Formen und Praktiken des Gedenkens in Deutschland haben sich mit dem Abstand zum historischen Geschehen verändert und lassen einen Übergang vom sozialen Gedächtnis zu einem kulturellen Gedenken erkennen. Gleichwohl unterscheiden sich die Formen deutscher Gedenkkultur von der jüdischen Erinnerungspraxis. Die vielfältigen traumatischen Erlebnisse der jüdischen Überlebenden der Shoah bestimmen deren Lebenswelt, haben Auswirkungen auf ihre jeweiligen Identitätskonzepte und Handlungsmuster und übertragen sich auf die nachfolgenden Generationen.
Die hier versammelten Beiträge geben unter anderem Einblicke in den wissenschaftlichen Diskurs über die Konsequenzen des individuellen und gesellschaftlichen Verarbeitens der Erinnerungen an den Nationalsozialismus und die Shoah sowie der daraus resultierenden Traumata; thematisieren den professionellen Umgang mit Überlebenden mit Blick auf deren Selbstkonzepte und ihre jeweiligen biografischen Narrative; fragen nach der Praxisrelevanz des Wissens um Prozesse des Erinnerns und Vergessens in der Betreuung von Überlebenden und deren Angehörigen; weisen auf den Zusammenhang zwischen den erlittenen Traumata, den Lebensumständen nach der Befreiung und den jeweiligen biografischen Erzählungen hin; schließlich verdeutlichen sie, was das gesellschaftlich bedingte kollektive Vergessen oder die Umdeutung der Geschichte für die Überlebenden und ihre Familien bedeutet.
Mit Beiträgen von: Katja von Auer ǀ Julia Bernstein ǀ Jackie Feldman ǀ Kurt Grünberg ǀ Tilmann Habermas ǀ Jens Hoppe ǀ Ulrike Jureit ǀ Doron Kiesel ǀ Salomon Korn ǀ Norma Musih ǀ Miriam Victory Spiegel ǀ Noemi Staszewski ǀ Gabriel Strenger ǀ Moshe Teller ǀ Ricarda Theiss ǀ Susanne Urban ǀ Lukas Welz ǀ Lea Wohl von Haselberg
Inhalt
Kurt Grünberg: Danach – Vergessen, Erinnern, Tradieren. Extremes Trauma und Kultur im postnationalsozialistischen Deutschland
Tilmann Habermas: Die Veränderung von Lebensgeschichten im Laufe des Lebens
Jackie Feldman/Norma Musih: Kollektive Erinnerung, digitale Medien und Holocaust-
Zeugenschaft
Jens Hoppe: Erinnern und Vergessen bei Überlebenden der Shoah. Anmerkungen
eines Historikers zu „Holocaust Oral Histories“
Salomon Korn: Kultur der Erinnerung
Gabriel Strenger: Erinnerung und Vergessen im biblischen Kontext
Susanne Urban: Fließende Erinnerungen. Reflexionen über die Befassung mit Zeitzeugen
Miriam Victory Spiegel: Nicht geheilte Wunden: Die Rolle von Erinnerung und Denkmälern
Julia Bernstein/Katja von Auer „Sie reagieren nur so, weil Sie jüdisch sind“. Diskursive Auseinandersetzungen mit den Auswirkungen der Shoah im Bildungskontext der Sozialen Arbeit
Moshe Teller: Papa, mir geht’s heute nicht besonders gut … Holocaust-Überlebende
und ihre Kinder: eine klinische Perspektive
Noemi Staszewski/Ricarda Theiss: Zeitzeugentheater. Potenziale transgenerationaler Projekte
Lukas Welz: Erinnern und Vergessen verantworten. Über die Notwendigkeit einer emanzipierten Erinnerung an die Shoah für die Betroffenen und die Gesellschaft
Lea Wohl von Haselberg: Zwischen Erinnern und Vergessen – Notizen zu Shoah und Film
Ulrike Jureit: Einsichten und Erkenntnisse
Abstract: An in‐depth qualitative interview study is reported, with respondents (N = 52; all female) from the following urban‐dwelling religious groups: White Christian, Pakistani Muslim, Indian Hindu, Orthodox Jewish and Afro‐Caribbean Christian. Qualitative thematic analysis of open‐ended interview responses revealed that the degree to which religious coping strategies were perceived to be effective in the face of depressive and schizophrenic symptoms, varied across the groups, with prayer being perceived as particularly effective among Afro‐Caribbean Christian and Pakistani Muslim groups. Across all non‐white groups, and also for the Jewish group, there was fear of being misunderstood by outgroup health professionals, and among Afro‐Caribbean Christian and Pakistani Muslim participants, evidence of a community stigma associated with mental illness, leading to a preference for private coping strategies. The results lend further support to recent calls for ethnic‐specific mental health service provision and highlight the utility of qualitative methodology for exploring the link between religion and lay beliefs about mental illness.
Abstract: This paper examined stress among two groups of orthodox Jews suggested to differ in the strength of the boundary of their religious group. Comparisons were made between the two groups, and with urban and rural groups studied by other researchers. Proportions of boundary-maintenance events (events whose threat had been caused or exacerbated by Jewishness) and of severe events, and proportions and rates of regular, irregular and disruptive events were examined. Boundary-maintenance events were higher among the more religiously orthodox affiliated group, and among whom religious observance was indeed reported to be higher. It was suggested that conditions of higher boundary maintenance would be associated with higher rates and proportions of regular events and with lower rates and proportions of irregular and disruptive events. Generally, the analyses supported this expectation. Boundary-maintenance events themselves were somewhat less severe, though not less likely to be irregular or disruptive than other events. Depression was shown to be unrelated to boundary-maintenance events and (surprisingly) unrelated to contextual threat when the effects of irregularity-disruption were controlled. Depression was, however, strongly related to irregular and disruptive events. The results are compared with those of related work, and suggest that the general lowering effect of affiliation to a religious group may be partly explained by the effects of boundary maintenance, which involves stress, but of a less depressogenic kind than the disruptive stress associated with conditions of low/no boundary maintenance. The findings have implications for understanding the relations between culture and mental disorder.
