Asylum Seekers and Refugees: An Ethno-Clinical Approach

"Ethno-clinics’ is an impossible word. Defining ‘ethno-clinics’ is like placing a label on a name, concealing thepolysemy of the term. We choose such a word because it is rarely used as a way of doing clinical work inpsychotherapy (Dubosc, 2016; Salmi, 2004) but we have chosen not to place a ‘registered trademark’ on it, as itusually happens in the ‘free market of ideas.’ The word ‘ethno-clinics’ is a composition of two words that we willanalyse in this essay. We will stress the difference between refugee and asylum seeker due to the generic use bythe media of the word ‘refugee’, which is convenient in hiding the fact that the vast majority of immigrants toEurope, in present times, are just asylum seekers; precisely, since Europe does not recognise the human rights ofthe Other and rejects immigrants, not granting asylum and pushing those people into the backdoor. Nevertheless,ethno-clinical work does not practice antagonism; it deals with the particular small differences that subvert thecomplete representation of identity. In Bateson’s (1972) terms, a difference that makes a difference. The practicewe describe is exercised in the context of a Cooperative Organisation, named Ruah, in Bergamo, Italy.