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Not Just Leaving—Becoming: Immigration as Individuation
- Dr. MJ Yang
- Jun 22
- 3 min read
This blog is dedicated to immigrants who left their home not just for opportunity, but for the right to be fully themselves.
This topic has shown up often in my recent clinical work, and I feel called to honor it here—especially because I also have a deep personal connection to it.
While immigration is often framed as a move for economic advancement, educational goals, or political safety, there exists another powerful and often hidden motivation: the pursuit of authenticity.
For some, leaving their homeland is not about rejection but about survival of the soul.
It is a journey toward integration, self-expression, and deep alignment with one’s values and identity.
The Invisible Push: When Identity Doesn’t Belong at Home
In many cultures, certain values, identities, or ways of being are marginalized or suppressed. This marginalization is not always visible but can be deeply felt.
People may leave because:
Their sexual orientation is condemned or criminalized.
They are single, divorced, or part of non-traditional relationships that are stigmatized.
They have chosen not to have children and face cultural pressure or shame for that decision.
Their gender identity does not align with societal expectations and they are not safe to express it.
Their lifestyle, values, or worldview simply do not match the mainstream narrative of what a "good" life should look like.
In these cases, the cost of staying is a kind of psychic exile—being disconnected from one's own truth in order to remain accepted.
In Jungian terms, this is a conflict between the Persona (the social mask we wear to fit in) and the true Self. The Persona becomes a protective strategy, but over time, it can imprison the parts of us that long to emerge.
Immigration as a Rite of Passage Toward Individuation
Immigration becomes more than a move; it becomes a rite of passage.
Like the hero's journey, it involves stepping away from the known, crossing thresholds, encountering loss and transformation, and seeking something more whole.
In Jungian psychology, this process echoes individuation: the unfolding of one’s true self by integrating both conscious and unconscious parts of the psyche. For immigrants who leave to be themselves, the journey is not only external but deeply internal. It is a brave step toward psychological wholeness, especially when one is forced to choose between community acceptance and personal authenticity.
The Pain and the Hope
Of course, the path is not without pain.
Immigrants carry multiple burdens:
Cultural and linguistic barriers
Isolation and longing for a home that never fully accepted them
Uncertainty around legal status or economic stability
But in the midst of these hardships, there is also liberation:
The possibility to form new chosen families and communities
The freedom to define one’s life without oppressive cultural scripts
The chance to heal the internal split between the Persona and the true Self
In a new place, one can explore new identities and personas—not to hide, but to experiment, grow, and align more authentically with one’s inner world.
Finding Home in the Self and in the World
Sometimes, leaving home allows us to finally find it—not always in geography, but in inner coherence.
Through the immigration individuation journey, we begin to reconcile where we come from with who we are becoming. We learn to carry our roots without being rooted in roles that no longer fit.
Jung reminds us that the Self is not discovered in isolation, but in relationship to the world.
Immigration, then, can be both a separation and a deep return to the Self—a paradoxical healing of becoming more whole by first breaking away.
Honoring the Courage of Those Who Leave to Become
To those who have left home not to escape, but to become: I see you.
Your journey may not always be understood, but it is profound.
Choosing authenticity over acceptance, integration over conformity, and inner truth over outer comfort is a radical act of courage.
May you find the connections, healing, and wholeness you seek. And may your path—however uncertain—lead you back to yourself.
Sometimes you must leave the place you were born to be reborn into the life that’s truly yours.
