The Unwelcome Migrants and Their Impossible Narration

In this paper, the author defines the cornerstones of good hospitality, based on his experience at a Centre for Refugees and Asylum Seekers. Good hospitality is defined by its capacity to foster migrants' emotional investment in building a meaningful life in the host country. Traumatic breakups inherited from their previous life experiences can be difficult or impossible to elaborate and integrate. This undermines the continuity of their sense of self. Such critical experiences, loaded with overwhelming suffering, need to be contacted to enable their representability. This is only possible in an environment perceived as fully supportive, where helping relationships can engage with dissociated experiences, fostering their narration. The author also explores the role of authenticity in helping relationships, as a key factor in preventing the migrant-or the patient in the analytic setting-from adapting compliantly to what they perceive as the expectations or desires of the other.