The Psychology of Migration and What Moves With Us, Identity and Belonging
Updated: Apr 15
Written by Karen Farhat, Body and Mind Consultancy
Dr. Karen Farhat is an integrative psychotherapist and intercultural expert, and founder of Body & Mind Consultancy. Her work explores intercultural psychology, identity, emotional well-being, and the psychology of belonging in an increasingly interconnected world.
Migration often begins quietly. I come from here. I come from there. I come from everywhere. Ever since I can remember, I have been on a plane flying somewhere. My small body was adapting quietly to movement while my mind simply followed the flow.
There was no time then to question it. Adaptation was instinct, the quiet survival skill of a child learning to move with the current rather than against it. Migration often begins this way. We move first. Only later do we pause long enough to ask: What exactly moved with us?
That question accompanies many migrants throughout their lives. As migrants, we sometimes feel like an old desktop computer still carrying a floppy disk, trying to find a place for it in a world that has already moved on to USB.
This is what the psychology of migration can feel like. Looking for that old device where the floppy disk still fits, while at the same time enjoying the new technologies, progressing with them, and learning how to live within them.
Migration slowly turns us into translators. What people often don’t realise is that migration is not always about crossing borders or continents. Sometimes it simply means moving between cities, homes, neighbourhoods, or schools.
Each shift asks something from us. It asks us to read new rooms, understand new rules, and respond to unfamiliar emotional signals.
Sometimes we learn this gently. Sometimes we learn it the hard way, and slowly, often without noticing, these movements begin to shape who we become. If only it were that simple.
Movement does not only change where we live. It quietly reshapes how we see ourselves.
Our psyche can sometimes resemble a set of Russian dolls.
You open one layer and find another, and another, and another, each carrying its own memory, influence, or experience.
All these layers quietly shape the person we become. But the deeper question remains, are these layers in harmony with one another? Do we accept them all as part of who we are?
Or does there come a moment when we begin to resist certain layers because culturally they no longer align with our memories, our upbringing, or even our expectations of what the world should look like?
As we grow up, a kind of internal schism can begin to appear. What our upbringing teaches us begins to collide with what we encounter in the world.
What is right? What is wrong? Why can others do things we were taught never to do? In that confusion, we learn to adapt.
Outside the home, we can become a little like lizards changing colour to match our surroundings. We adjust our tone, our behaviour, even our beliefs. Then we return home and quietly shift back into the colour that is expected of us. Identity becomes negotiation.
Perhaps this is one of the most subtle discoveries of growing up, that much of what we carry is not only who we are, but also who we were expected to be.
One of the most persistent questions we encounter in life is simple, yet profound: Who am I?
It is the same question explored by Nisargadatta Maharaj, whose teachings revolve around the understanding of a simple statement: I am. Not I am this, or I am that. Just I am.
As we explore spirituality and self-awareness, we begin to see how easily we attach ourselves to identities, roles, expectations, and labels. Yet the deeper insight is that beneath all of these, there is simply the presence of the awareness of being, without needing to define it.
Perhaps growing up is not only about discovering who we are, but also about slowly loosening the identities we once believed we had to become.
At some point in life, most of us pass through this kind of questioning. As long as it remains a healthy inquiry, it can be a good thing.
It invites us to look beyond the roles we were given and gently rediscover the simple awareness of being. Migration does not only move our bodies across borders. It quietly reshapes the way we understand who we are.
“I come from there, and I have memories.” – Mahmoud Darwish
Read more from Karen Farhat
Dr. Karen Farhat, Body and Mind Consultancy
Dr. Karen Farhat is an integrative psychotherapist, relationship expert, and intercultural specialist, and the founder of Body & Mind Consultancy, an online and in-person practice serving clients in Cyprus and worldwide. She is recognised as a pioneering voice in integrative psychotherapy and works with expats, people living between countries and cultures, and intercultural couples on identity, emotional wellbeing, relationships, and the psychology of belonging across cultures. In 2025, she received a Global Recognition Award for mentoring and leadership in mental health and wellbeing and a Bronze Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year, recognising her impact as a purpose-driven founder in the wellbeing space.
