ABSTRACT
Conditions of poverty and the absence of economic possibilities have long been the primary drivers of Latin American migration to the United States. However, in recent years, as extreme violence has ravaged many Latin American countries like Mexico and Central America, that violence has increased migration flows. Thinking about the experience of immigration requires that we theorize the impact of trauma and violence as part of the immigration experience. The authors examine the cases of Sylvia, Gloria, and Arturo Juan, immigrants to the United States from communities in Mexico ravaged by violence, who personally experienced the impact of such violence in addition to experiences of familial deprivation, conflict, and loss. Though they each presented for treatment due to concerns situated in the present, their experiences of violence inherently shaped and interacted with their presenting concerns. A young man who as a 15-year-old was abducted along with two friends from a Mexican town close to the American border and whom they treated as a low-fee patient. A local cartel-affiliated gang held Juan and the others in a safe house where they were brutalized. Juan witnessed the execution of his friends prior to being released. Juan fled across the border into the United States. Three years later, he lived in Austin, Texas, working for minimum wage at a car wash. When he sought treatment, Juan was highly motivated and showed all the psychological characteristics of a traumatized individual – emotionally numb, highly anxious, and isolated. These cases are analyzed in terms of a psychoanalytic understanding of their dynamics. The authors show the importance of creating a therapeutic space that helped each client, despite the different natures of each case, Juan hold this traumatic material. These clinical vignettes are linked to the above-noted trend in immigration from Latin America, where so many are fleeing communities ravaged by violence.
