When we usually talk about an expatriate, we tend to consider the ‘average Joe’: the one who relocates abroad for a work assignment for a definite or indefinite period, who faces challenges with adjusting abroad, and who most probably encounters reverse cultural shock and readjustment problems upon repatriation back home. However, there are far more critical, or even extreme, expatriation cases.
The population I am referring to consists of military personnel, doctors or humanitarian workers, who serve their assignments abroad, but usually under very challenging and even traumatic conditions. Similar to how the importance of repatriation has been traditionally underestimated in the business world, repatriation from such challenging assignments may be misjudged. Indeed, what could be better than returning from dangerous and psychologically dreadful realities of an assignment to the safety of one’s home? Yet, the psychological consequences of such repatriation may be quite substantial.
A simple Google search on the topic of repatriation from military service provides data on veterans’ psychological wounds, and the most pronounced issue of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Various statistical data on American veterans suggest that around 14% to 20% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have PTSD and/or Depression, with only half of them actively seeking treatment. This reality also gets attention in the media. For example, a recent NY Times article reviews the treatment of female veterans, while CBC News tells the story of a life-changing bike ride of ‘wounded warriors’. Although looking at the bright side of possible rehabilitation, all these stories share the same description of their main character – a repatriated person, who returns from the battlefield only to continue an inner battle with occasional anxiety attacks, nightmares, depression and the feeling of misplacement.
The American Psychological Association (APA) shares similar notions in regards to humanitarian workers. A recent APA publication (2011) suggests that humanitarian workers, who got exposed to traumatized populations, experience reentry trauma upon returning home. As stated, ‘following the end of an overseas contract, aid workers return home exhausted from the strain and stress of working abroad and uncertain of what to do with the new profound and unsettling knowledge that human beings and Mother Nature often do not act humanely’.
Naturally, the media coverage and other publications on the topic focus on the most obvious aid strategy, which is to increase awareness about the problem. Further, different sources suggest that social support and empathy, engagement in different activities, and various psychological interventions (e.g. therapies, life skills training, debriefing) are being used to support the repatriation process.
Indeed, the described cases are far from the realities of civilian expatriates in the business world, yet some parallels can be still drawn. The difficulties of readjustment, feelings of being misplaced and alienated, the inability to share one’s experiences from abroad, and the very notion of not feeling understood for struggling with what outsiders see as a ‘simple’ return back home – these are some of the commonalities among many people that find themselves returning. Finally, given the increasing trend of sending international assignees to more remote and developing locations in emerging markets, the security risks become more pronounced, and traumatizing experiences more possible.
Hence, while this is clearly not the ‘average Joe’ expat situation, these extreme cases are worth considering. And most likely we can learn a lot from such slightly less related experiences!