Expectations and Dilemmas of African Immigrants in Europe and North America

Abstract

This chapter offers a four-dimensional perspective for understanding the psychologies and perturbations of the green-carded African Immigrants in Europe and North America. This four-dimensional framework is proposed to draw attention to the complexities of the inner worlds of these immigrants and to widen the scope of the literature to gain a proper appreciation of the tensions and challenges that confront African immigrants who emigrate to Europe or the United States, not as students/minors, refugees, or asylum seekers, but as the “lucky” beneficiaries of official government-sponsored visa lotteries. The central aim of the chapter is to open clinicians’ eyes to perspectives they might not consider in the context of bringing therapeutic interventions to African immigrants in Europe and North America. Three levels of career counseling practice are proposed for working with clients from the African immigrant population.