ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents discussion results, original research and crucial topics that proved necessary and helpful in the field of social trauma and migration. It provides attention to unconscious traces of trauma, but also addresses relevant issues for migration policy and mental health. For a media consumer, wars look like video games; and those broadcasted images, in turn, may lead into action. In the emerging age of illusion, the image prevails over the argument. Driven by wars between hardly defined governmental and non-governmental parties, intertwined with all kinds of authoritarian systems and economic exploitations, enhanced by means of mobility and communication unprecedented in history, the victims of change turn to profiteers. Both the welcoming stance and the resentments are shaped by history. Social Trauma is one key concept to explain the psychological mechanisms at work in refugee reception.
