When someone migrates, they do not only change country. They change language, daily life, social codes, relationships and ways of living. What often remains invisible is that, along with all this, their very sense of who they are shifts too.
Many people living abroad describe how, after some years, they no longer feel entirely “there”, but nor are they exactly as they were “here”. When they return to Greece they may feel different from the people they left behind. When they are in the new country, they may still feel that they carry something foreign, or that a part of them remains connected to their place of origin.
This creates an experience that contemporary psychology describes as a dual or hybrid cultural identity. It is not necessarily confusion. It is a normal process of adaptation, in which a person tries to create a new sense of self that can hold both their past and their present.
Identity is not static
We often assume that our identity is something fixed: our language, our values, our habits and the way we were raised. In reality, however, identity is continually evolving through our experiences and relationships.
Migration is one of the most intense experiences capable of transforming the image we have of ourselves. For example, someone who in Greece felt sociable, spontaneous and “themselves” within familiar relationships may, in a new country, find themselves facing a different reality: having to speak a language they do not fully command, redefining how they make friends, or adapting the way they express their needs and feelings. Through this process they may discover new sides of themselves, but also experience a temporary doubt about who they are and how they exist in the new world. A person is called upon to integrate new ways of communicating, different social norms and new roles — without this meaning that they have to reject their previous life.
The point is not to become “less Greek” or “more foreign”. It is to be able to create a sense of continuity between the different sides of one’s life.
Between two cultures
Most migrants do not really live in one culture only. They live daily between two worlds.
At home they may speak Greek, keep customs and family traditions, and stay connected with their community of origin. At work, at university or in their social relationships they operate within the rules and expectations of the country where they live.
It is not unusual for them to feel that different sides of themselves are activated depending on the environment they are in.
This alternation can be a source of creativity and psychological flexibility. But it can also become demanding when it is accompanied by the sense that they must constantly prove where they really belong.
The feeling of “not belonging anywhere”
One of the most common experiences of people who have lived abroad for many years is that they gradually feel foreign in both places.
In the host country they may be treated as “the foreigners”. In Greece, when they return, they may hear that they “have changed”, that they “no longer understand how things are here”.
This can create a deep sense of loneliness. Not because there are necessarily no people around them, but because they struggle to find a context in which all the sides of their identity are recognised and accepted.
Cultural identity as a source of resilience
Contemporary research shows that maintaining one’s cultural identity is not an obstacle to adaptation. On the contrary, it can function as an important protective factor for mental health and wellbeing.
Cultural identity does not work like a set of scales, where the more one side is strengthened the more the other is lost. Most people gradually develop multiple cultural identities, which can coexist and complement one another.
This process is described as cultural integration and appears to be associated with better psychological adjustment. Contact with the language, the traditions, the community and cultural practices strengthens the sense of continuity and social connection, without preventing meaningful participation in the new society (Avgoulas & Fanany, 2021).
Research on migration also shows that a sense of connection with the place where one lives, social ties and a feeling of stability in the new community are significant factors in migrants’ wellbeing and in their intention to stay (Toruńczyk-Ruiz & Brunarska, 2020).
Bicultural identity is not confusion
Many people fear that because they think, feel or behave differently depending on the cultural context, they have lost their authenticity.
Research on Bicultural Identity Integration (BII) shows that the difficulty does not lie in having two cultural identities, but in whether the person experiences them as compatible or as conflicting.
When the two sides of the self can coexist, people show greater psychological flexibility, better emotional adjustment and a greater capacity to respond to different social environments. Conversely, distress increases when a person feels they must choose which side of themselves to reject (Abu-Rayya et al., 2023).
This process can become more demanding when someone lives in a society with cultural codes different from those they grew up with. However, the difficulty does not depend only on cultural differences. It is significantly affected by how far the host society recognises difference, by experiences of acceptance or rejection, by the existence of social ties, and by the person’s ability to maintain elements of their original identity.
So a Greek living in Germany or Switzerland may need to navigate different social rules, ways of communicating, or ideas about relationships and daily life. The challenge, however, is not the difference itself; it is whether these different experiences can be integrated into a coherent picture of the self.
Identity as an ongoing process
Cultural identity does not settle after the first years of migration. It goes on changing at every new stage of life: when new friendships form, when children are born, when work changes, or when a person returns temporarily to their place of origin.
Identity is not a fixed characteristic but an ongoing negotiation between experiences, relationships and the social environment.
A person does not simply carry a place. They carry memories, languages, relationships, values and ways of seeing the world. The challenge is not to decide which of all these worlds is the “real” one. The challenge is to be able to create space for all of them to coexist.
Psychotherapy as a space of reconnection
For many people, the difficulty lies not only in adapting to a new country, but in the need to reconcile different sides of themselves.
Psychotherapy can be a space in which questions like these can be explored: Who do I choose to be? What did I keep from the place I left? What did I take from the country where I live? How can I feel that I belong without having to choose between my two sides?
The answer usually does not lie in choosing one identity at the expense of the other. It lies in the possibility of creating a more complex and integrated sense of self.
Perhaps, in the end, psychological adjustment to migration does not depend so much on whether someone feels more Greek or more a citizen of their new country. Perhaps it depends more on whether they can hold both experiences within their story, without having to reject either.
Cultural identity is not a label we choose once in our lives. It is a relationship that goes on being shaped through experiences, losses, bonds and new belongings.
References:
Abu-Rayya, H. M., Berry, J. W., Sam, D. L., & Grigoryev, D. (2023). Evaluating the integration hypothesis: A meta-analysis of the ICSEY project data using two new methods. British Journal of Psychology, 114, 819–837. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12656
Avgoulas, M.-I., & Fanany, R. (2021). Migration, identity and wellbeing in Melbourne Australia: The idea of being Greek in diaspora. Athens Journal of Social Sciences, 8(3), 211–220. https://doi.org/10.30958/ajss.8-3-4
Toruńczyk-Ruiz, S., & Brunarska, Z. (2020). Through attachment to settlement: Social and psychological determinants of migrants’ intentions to stay. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 46(15), 3191–3209. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1554429
