Psychic vulnerability and migratory processes. Some considerations on the sidelines of a research-intervention project

Abstract

This article reflects on the value of training of health care professionals (nurses, physiotherapists, professional educators) that find themselves in variously changing and complex settings, and who find themselves interacting with themes, problems and practices related to mental health. Starting from some reflections that emerged with operators involved in a professional training course within a specific research-intervention project (https://www.forwardproject.unisi.it), the contribution questions how a renewed “pedagogy of care” can help these professionals to better understand the nature and the constitutive factors of the process of signification and re-signification of the experience of psychiatric illness, especially when one comes into contact with subjects involved in forced migratory experiences.

Keywords

• pedagogy of care
• psychic suffering
• processes of signification
• illness
• research-intervention project