Human Uprooting

Abstract

The term “Entwurzelungs-Depression” (depression resulting from uprooting) has come to stay as a term in German psychiatry, and together with similar psychopathological phenomena has on many occasions aroused interest in problems of uprooting, and thus also in the finding and rediscovery of human roots. Some years ago H. Ruffin drew attention to the drastic changes in environmental and living conditions affecting vast numbers of people as a result of deportations, expulsions, loss of homeland, family, possessions, work, honor and respect, and the threat to both body and soul in prisons, concentration camps, or during attempts to escape. Special note should be taken of his remark that the older generation forms a considerable proportion of survivors who suffer from feelings of failure, and who have been described in accounts of depression caused by uprooting, of diminished responsibility and other psychotic reactions, with loss of contact colored by apathy.