When the thought of home hurts

Homesickness usually strikes in the evening. Tears roll down the cheeks of children at holiday camps, otherwise cheerful boys and girls retreat to their rooms and some suddenly have stomach aches. 94 per cent of all children who travel to a holiday camp miss home on at least one day, according to a US survey. It hardly matters whether a child has never been away from their parents before or has been away several times.
Even teenagers and adults are not immune to homesickness : around one in two young people who move to another city to study yearn to return to their old nest for the first few weeks. Many sailors and soldiers also report that they sometimes sorely miss home. Even on holiday, some people are overcome by a longing for the familiar.

Homesickness manifests itself in a depressed mood, loneliness, insomnia, poor appetite, lack of concentration and social withdrawal.

«Homesickness is something deeply human. When we leave our familiar surroundings, almost everyone longs for home,» says Wilfried Schumann, Head of the Psychosocial Counselling Centre of the Student Union at the University of Oldenburg. That's why students regularly turn up at his centre at the start of the semester. «Anyone who moves away from their hometown leaves their previous frame of reference,» he explains. The young people first have to overcome this personal crisis.
Although homesickness varies in intensity, it often manifests itself in similar ways: those affected are in a depressed mood and feel lonely, they suffer from a lack of sleep and appetite, concentration problems and withdraw. Younger children in particular suffer. As they get older and gain more experience, they settle into a new environment more easily.

Secure attachment - less homesickness

There is no protective shield against homesickness: anyone who feels like they are moving against their will will find it difficult to gain a foothold in a foreign country. The premonition that you will soon suffer from homesickness there also promotes the feeling of longing, explain psychologist Christopher Thurber and paediatrician Edward Walton, who have been researching the topic for years. And if you really don't like the new city, it's easier to feel nostalgic and your thoughts wander back all the more frequently.
The attachment style influences how quickly a person feels at home in a new place, says US developmental psychologist Marian Sigman. The style develops in infancy and later affects relationships with friends and partners. It determines how a person deals with distance and absence from others. People with a secure attachment style are independent, open to others and enjoy exploring. Unfamiliar places and strangers scare them less and they only experience homesickness to a lesser extent.

A kind of mini-mourning

For insecurely attached people, on the other hand, it is uncertain how they will come across to others. For them, it means pure stress if they don't know anyone in a foreign city and have to approach strangers. They long for home and old friends more often and more strongly. Scientists have concluded from such findings that homesickness and separation anxiety can be traced back to the same «excessive fear of separation». In 2015, psychologists led by Margaret Stroebe from Utrecht University (Netherlands) interpreted the phenomenon as a kind of mini-mourning, which is primarily caused by separation from home and family. This is exacerbated when the new start in a new place of residence is stressful. «For children with an attachment disorder, it cannot be taken for granted that their attachment figure loves them and thinks of them,» says psychologist Korinna Fritzemeyer.

Prevention helps

She has been a volunteer child protection officer for the Berlin association Wildfang since 2011 and has led numerous holiday trips for foster and adopted children. Many of the participants have an insecure attachment pattern and therefore show diffuse forms of homesickness. They wet themselves at night, for example, or are restless and aggressive towards others.

Simple methods often help to prevent this. The children should have a say in the choice of holiday activities so that they don't feel left to their own devices and pushed away. It is helpful if they have taken things from home with them. «Almost all children, especially the younger ones, bring an object with them that reminds them of their home and good experiences with their foster parents,» says Korinna Fritzemeyer.
This could be a toy bought especially for the trip or their favourite pillowcase, a worn cuddly toy or a woollen blanket - preferably something that hasn't been freshly washed but smells a bit like home. On the way, games or walks through nature help the children to distract themselves from homesickness.

Arrive emotionally

Students are also offered a lot to help them settle in quickly. «Universities organise familiarisation days in the first semester, and campus life makes it easy to make new contacts,» says student advisor Wilfried Schumann. Students should not just cram, but also take advantage of sports activities, join a theatre group or get involved in politics.
Whether it's leisure time, starting university or a permanent job in a distant country: if you find out about the new place beforehand and discover positive aspects there, you will settle in more quickly. Concrete plans should be made before the move: What activities do you want to pursue in the future, which neighbourhood do you want to live in, how do you want your week to be structured? In this way, you can counteract the feeling of losing control over your lifestyle in the new place at an early stage.

The internet, emails and social networks are both a blessing and a curse when you move house.

When moving, it makes sense to continue your hobbies and interests. If you enjoy cooking, jogging or playing cards, you should continue to do so. And clubs, for example, offer the opportunity to get to know people quickly and easily. This is essential for emotional connection. The internet, emails and social networks prove to be both a blessing and a curse when moving house. Old friends can be reached easily and at any time.
But this is precisely where the problem lies: «Technology creates a dedicated line to home. Instead of engaging with the new place, young people constantly receive stimuli from their old environment and basically continue to live there,» says Wilfried Schumann. Such students then look for new friends less intensively at their place of study. This makes it more difficult for them to overcome the homesickness phase and gain a foothold in the new city. Psychologists therefore recommend only phoning old friends at the weekend.

What's fun here?

«Thoughts of home should be saved for times when you're feeling good,» wrote Dutch psychologist Miranda van Tilburg in a widely quoted article. "When we feel bad, when we need the security of home the most and therefore expose our feelings, it helps us the most if we get involved in the new environment: What's fun here? How can we overcome the loneliness, the sadness, the boredom?"
However, it is a myth that homesickness only arises when you talk about it. Christopher Thurber and Edward Walton recommend that families and friends talk openly about worries and fears. Solutions can be developed together. There is only one promise parents should never make to their children: That they will come and pick up the child if they don't like it. «This reduces the likelihood of the child settling in,» say the two scientists, "because it fuels negative expectations. And the child begins to doubt whether it will be able to settle in elsewhere at all. At the holiday camp, Korinna Fritzemeyer speaks to the children as early as possible when the first signs of homesickness appear. This is because they are ashamed and rarely express their fears of their own accord.
The psychologist enquires about their worries and reassures the children that their feelings are understandable. «Children need to be signalled that someone is reliably there for them, even when they are far away,» she says. They need to feel that their fears are not simply wiped away, but taken seriously. Only those who feel safe are open to others. Sometimes it also helps to give the children a different perspective: «Look, it's a good sign that you miss your home and your family. That means you really like something. They must be thinking of you very much. And you'll see them again soon.» Sentences like that probably comfort everyone to some extent.

Homesickness - the «Swiss disease»

The term homesickness goes back to the Alsatian doctor Johannes Hofer, who dedicated his dissertation to the phenomenon in 1688. He described homesickness as an illness that was fatal and only affected the Swiss. However, Hofer was still puzzled as to whether the trigger was the lack of daily soup, «nice milk» or the «longing for patriotic freedom». 30 years later, the Zurich doctor Johann J. Scheuchzer observed an incidence of the «malady» among Swiss mercenaries - who immediately fell ill with homesickness or deserted as soon as they started singing a yodel. Which is why this was consequently banned under «serious punishment».
The Swisscoy soldiers in Kosovo had it better, who, according to the Pedagogical-Psychological Service, played the plush hit «Heimweh» up and down in 2002. However, there were no reports of increased desertions. What is remarkable is the correlation described in a more recent study: the closer to home they had to serve, the more recruits suffered from «adjustment disorders». The thought of being able to return home quickly at any time apparently increased homesickness. Ergo: Don't be afraid to send your child to camp in the south of France! They will probably suffer less than if they spend a week in Beinwil am See.

An ailment that subsides quickly?

As a rule, homesickness quickly subsides after an initial peak - in the first few weeks of studying abroad, for example. However, this does not apply to everyone: «There are different types of courses,» Dutch researchers found in an overview study in 2015. Some of those affected suffered from homesickness before they had even left home, and for some of them the longing lasted for years.
For some foreign students and labour migrants who stay abroad for several years, the pain even increases over time. According to the team led by psychologist Margaret Stroebe, the 55 findings also indicate that the risk of mental and physical illness increases with severe homesickness. In individual studies, for example, increased psychosomatic complaints and coronary heart disease were observed.

This article first appeared in the journal «Gehirn & Geist»

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