Table Of ContentUPROOTING
AND
DEVELOPMENT
Dilemmas of Coping with
Modernization
Current Topics in Mental Health
Series Editors: Paul I. Ahmed
u.s. Office of International Health
Department of Health and Human Services
and
Stanley C. Plog
Plag Research, Inc.
STATE MENTAL HOSPITALS: What Happens When They Close
Edited by Paull. Ahmed and Stanley C. Plog
COPING WITH PHYSICAL ILLNESS
Edited by Rudolf H. Moos
THE PRINCIPLES AND TECHNIQUES OF MENTAL
HEALTH CONSULTATION
Edited by Stanley C. Plog and Paull. Ahmed
TOWARD A NEW DEFINITION OF HEALTH
Edited by Paull. Ahmed and George V. Coelho
THE YEAR 2000 AND MENTAL RETARDATION
Edited by Stanley C. Plog and Miles B. Santamour
UPROOTING AND DEVELOPMENT: Dilemmas of Coping with
Modernization
Edited by George V. Coelho and Paull. Ahmed
UPROOTING
AND
DEVELOPMENT
Dilemmas of Coping with
Modernization
Edited by
George V. Coelho
National Institute of Mental Health
Rockville, Maryland
and
Paul I. Ahmed
U. s. Office of International Health
Department of Health and Human Services
Rockville, Maryland
With the assistance of
Ying-Ying T. Yuan
Lawrence Johnson and Associates, Inc.
Washington, D.C.
Plenum Press · New York and London
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Uprooting and development.
(Current topics in mental health)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Mental health. 2. Child mental health. 3. Minorities - Mental health. 4. Social
change - Psychological aspects. 5. Industrialization - Psychological aspects.
I. Coelho, George V. n. Ahmed, Paul I. III. Yuan, Ying-Ying T. [DNLM: 1. Stress,
Psychological. 2. Adaptation, Psychological. 3. Social environment. WM172 U68]
RA790.5.U67 303.4'3 81-16539
ISBN-13: 978-1-4684-3796-6 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4684-3794-2
001: 10.1007/978-1-4684-3794-2
© 1980 Plenum Press, New York
Softcover reprint of the hardcover lst edition 1980
A Division of Plenum Publishing Corporation
227 West 17th Street, New York, N.Y. 10011
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming,
recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher
Dedicated to
our children, whose future promises
change, resilience, and growth
George Arjun, Jr., Susie Sumangali,
and Victor Anand Coelho;
Paul Farzand, Jr., Irene Michelle,
and Rochelle Yvonne Ahmed;
and Nicole Patricia Rui-Zhen Yuan
Contributors
Paul I. Ahmed, M.A., L.L.B., Public Health Advisor, U.S. Office of International Health,
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Department of Health and Human
Services, Rockville, Maryland
Lorna Rhodes AmaraSingham, Ph.D., Social Anthropologist, Bethesda, Maryland
Kurt W. Back, Ph.D., Chairman and Professor, Department of Sociology, Duke Univer
sity, Durham, North C'lrolina
Inge Bretherton, Ph.D., Research Psychologist, Department of Psychology, University of
Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
Richard Harvey Brown, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Sociology, Division of Behavioral
Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, and Visiting Lecturer,
Faculte des Sciences Sociales, Departement de Sociologie, Universite d'Ottawa,
Canada
John H. Bryant, M.D., Deputy Assistant Secretary of International Health, Office of
International Health, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Department of
Health and Human Services, Rockville, Maryland
George V. Coelho, Ph.D., Senior Social Scientist, Office of the Assistant Director for
Children and Youth, National Institute of Mental Health, Rockville, Maryland
Lucy M. Cohen, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology,
Catholic University, Washington, D.C.
Marc Fried, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Human Sciences, and Director, Labo
ratory of Psychosocial Studies, Boston College, Boston, Massachusetts
vii
viii Contributors
Elaine Ruth Goldberg, M. Ed. Educational Consultant and Writer, Boston, Massachu
setts
James S. Gordon, M.D., Research Psychiatrist, Center for Studies of Child and Family
Mental Health, National Institute of Mental Health, Rockville, Maryland
Otto Klineberg, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Columbia University, and
Visiting Professor, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France
Aliza Kolker, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Sociology, George Mason University, Fairfax,
Virginia
Peter Marris, Ph.D., Professor, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University
of California, Los Angeles, California
Murali Nair, D.S.W., Associate Professor and Director of Admissions, Graduate School
of Social Work, Marywood College, Scranton, Pennsylvania
Paul B. Pedersen. Ph.D., Research Fellow, Culture Learning Institute. East-West Center,
Honolulu, Hawaii
Maria Pfister-Amende, M.D., M.P.H., Psychiatrist and President, Swiss National Com
mittee for Mental Health, Zurich, Switzerland
Parmatma Saran, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Baruch College,
The City University of New York, New York, New York
Seth Spaulding, Ph.D., Professor, International and Development Education Programs,
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Jane J. Stein, Medical Science Writer, Washington, D.C.
Margaret A. Thomson, M.A., Subcommittee Staff Director, Subcommittee on Forests,
Committee on Agriculture, U. S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.
Frank M. Tims, Ph.D., Program Analyst, National Institute of Drug Abuse, Rockville.
Maryland
Edward A. Tiryakian, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Duke
University, Durham, North Carolina
Joseph E. Trimble, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychology, Western Washington
University, Bellingham, Washington
Contributors ix
Sidney Werkman, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of
Medicine, Denver, Colorado
Ying-Ying T. Yuan, Ph.D., Division Manager and Senior Scientist, Lawrence Johnson
and Associates, Inc., Washington, D.C.
Foreword
Uprooting has to do with one of the fundamental properties of human
life-the need to change-and with the personal and societal mecha
nisms for dealing with that need. As with the more general problems
of change, uprooting can be a time of human disaster and desolation,
or a time of adaptation and growth into new capacities.
The special quality of uprooting is that the need to change is faced
at a time of separation from accustomed social, cultural, and environ
mental support systems. It is this separation from familiar supports
that either renders the uprooted vulnerable to the destructive conse
quences of change, or creates freedoms for their evolution into new
and constructive patterns of life. Whether the outcomes will be destruc
tive or constructive will be determined by the forces at work: the
nature and power of the uprooting forces versus the personal and
societal capacities for coping with them.
Uprooting events are so widespread as to be compared with the
major rites of life, but with the difference that dislocation is involved.
Uprooting reaches from self-imposed movements such as rural-to
urban migration, running away, and traveling abroad for schooling, to
natural and man-made disasters such as earthquakes, political oppres
sion, and war. The impacts vary from the need to adapt to. a new
culture for an interim period of study to the desolating consequences
of the total loss of family, friends, home, and country.
The variants of uprooting apply to all societies and all countries,
rich and poor, north and south, east and west. No society is spared
the threats and the possibilities of uprooting.
Thus, uprooting is everywhere to be seen; and this volume
explores it in its great variety. It documents the forms of uprooting,
xi
xii Foreword
describes the social and personal dynamics of coping or failing to cope
with the stresses of uprooting, and, importantly, sets out the possibil
ities of organized societal response that can ease the stresses and
promote the supporting structures that will assist the uprooted in
coping with changes. In so doing, this book serves the heuristic
purpose of stimulating our thinking about the uprooted, pushes us to
a better understanding of their problems, and leads us toward more
constructive actions to assist them. For these reasons, we are indebted
to the editors and authors of this stimulating work.
John H. Bryant, M.D.
