ABSTRACT
Although 7.6 million persons from other countries live in Germany and nearly 16.5 million of 80.5 million German inhabitants have a migration background (Federal Statistical Office) – in all, 20% of the population – psychoanalytic literature concerning the psychotherapeutic interaction with migrants is scarce. This is astonishing, especially concerning adolescents for whom identity formation may become a great problem against their bicultural background. Adolescence is a so-called second phase of individuation (Blos, 1962; Mahler et al., 1975), often a time full of crisis and even more unstable in the case of an additional third phase of individuation (Ahktar, 1999), as coping with migration is also called. Generally, adolescents experience role confusions (Erikson, 1950) during their quest for identity. In the case of different cultural conceptions, further disorientation and also culturally determined identity confusion may occur (Jensen et al., 2011).
