Russian Woman Journal

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Family matters

In the modern times with around 3 million people residing in the USA of Russian origin, it becomes acute to counsel the Russian speaking population in the USA in general, as Russian speaking wives of Americans in particular.

While helping them to adjust to their new lifestyle, in transition from communism to capitalism, one needs to make them and their partners aware of specifics of the moment of adjustments they are dealing with.

While establishing the rapport with such population counselor needs to keep in mind the cultural characteristics of both groups - Russian speaking women and their American husbands, the acculturation level of both of them, family dynamics and the values their family origins implanted in them, socioeconomic status of both of groups before and after the marriage, racial identity development and the stereotypes they already had in certain areas.

According to statistics, during 10 years, more then 100 000 Russian speaking women from the former Soviet Union, which comprises now 15 independent counties of Eastern Europe , got married abroad. It’s like 4 fiancées a day step off the plane, landing on the territory of the USA .

These vast departures of women are caused by demographic bias in their home countries, plus the poor economic situation as well as lack of family values the society was propagating. The reasons that may force them to migrate can be tracked from the work of Levant (2003), who on the sample of Russian and US population explores the relationship between men, traditional masculinity ideology and behaviors that put their health at risk.

From this research we can find out that many normative masculine behaviors are psychologically dysfunctional and promote unhealthy behaviors, which make the women population desperate to look into the new relationships and the new life outside their culture.

Most of the women, who arrive here from overseas, have already formed stereotypes of what the life in America should look like, borrowed from Hollywood movies, with dominant luxury life style image. Many of them are greatly disappointed, when the reality does not fit their imagination, filled with the paradise pictures.

Besides cultural differences, their husband’s have already perceived values of family life, which were formed in a completely different society, then the one their wives were grown in. And all that leads to the hitting points, from which the conflicts and contradictions in the new families arose. In many cases men as well as the women became deeply unhappy with their choices of life partner, and start to look for the scapegoat, blaming themselves and the others in all the possible sins.

The real problem in fact would be their inability to match one with the other the reality and their quality world’s images. So, we can talk that every bicultural couple to some point would be definitely in need of mental help and request of the professionals, who in their turn should be aware of the ingredients that comprise the problems of such international marriage communication and its dysfunctions.

Yakushko (2005), talking about immigrant women from counseling perspective, described the Bronfenbrenner (1979) Ecological Model and the factors that influence mental health of immigrant women. Among them are such individual factors like age, sex, language proficiency and coping styles, mierosystem factors, such as family composition, urban or rural home, occupational status, and educational background, mesosystem factors, like relations among immigrant’s support network, exosystem factors like political and economic climate at home, relations between home and host countries, availability of legal and social benefits and macrosystem factors, discussing religious values and believes, racial and ethnic composition, political values and social status of immigrant in their home and host countries (Yakushko et al, 2005).

Research done among Vietnamese immigrants- women earlier found out that similar stressors: marriage plus immigration, would lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, mourning and grieving of multiple losses, acculturative stress, loneliness, loss of self-esteem, strain and fatigue from cognitive overload, unrootedness, and perception that they are unable to function competently in the new culture. Some of them may even experience a critical level of depression and suicidal ideations (Phan, 2005). And if to keep in mind the model of grievance by Kubler-Ross (1991), most of women will be facing such 5 stages during their adjustment to the new life style as denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

In the two books, published in USA “Married to American, Russian wife stories” (2003) and “Adaptation of Slav in America” (2006), author Natalia Tkachenko gave a lot of concrete examples that illustrates the psychological problems any women with Russian language and cultural background will be dealing with while in her marriage in the foreign countries.

So, from combined sources, while in the counseling sessions, an accurate evaluation of Russian immigrant’s women’s mental health should be done. Counselors should create a secure emotional environment, where women with cultural experiences would be considered and they can unveil their real troubles. To avoid being estranged from the counseling sessions, a therapist should follow the format of bilingual communication, using certified interpreters if needed.

Practitioners may help with the transition issues, by providing information, dealing with religion, gender, race and sexual orientation, as well as language abilities Counselors should assess the reasons of immigration, family members left behind, educational and professional background and expectations from the marriage in general, and cross-cultural communications.

Great would be the idea to balance on the clients short -term and long –term needs. For example, counselors may help such women with career counseling that may sequentially eliminate such factors as depression, stress or anxieties. Also important, while starting such a session, is to explain the limits of confidentiality, providing women and their husbands with verbal and written information in both languages. Understanding and dealing with the mental health of immigrant women is a new frontier of multicultural counseling.

 

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References:

Levant, R., Sellers, A., Cuthbert, A,. Mitina, O., Sokolovsky, M. (2003) Masculinity and ideology among Russian and U.S. young men and women and its relationship to unhealthy lifestyle habits among young Russian men. Psychology of Men and Masculinity, 4(1), 26-36.

Phan, L., Rivera, E., Roberts- Wilburg, J. (2005) Understanding Vietnamese refugee women’s identity development from a sociopolitical and historical perspective. Journal of Counseling and development, 83, 305-312.

Yakushko, O., Chronister, K. (2005). Immigrant women and counseling: the invisible others. Journal of Counseling and Development, 83, 292-297.

Tkachenko, N. (2003). Married to American: Russian Wife stories”. Instuntpublisher.

Tkachenko, N. (2006). Adaptation in immigration: Slav in America (For reading in Russian). Authorhouse, Bloomington , IL .

 

Author’s Background for Natalia Tkachenko:  

Natalia Tkachenko was born in Moldova, when it was part of the former Soviet Union.
She graduated from the Moscow State University faculty of journalism in 1988.
For over12 years she worked in the Moldovan mass media as a reporter and later public relations specialist for international companies based there.
Her first book of psychological novels was published in Chisinau in 2000.
In 2001 she married an American citizen and moved to USA.
She wrote about her experiences.
‘Married to an American; Russian wife stories.’ is in English.
‘Adaptation in Immigration’ is in Russian.
The theme of her books is what happens when a Russian woman marries an American and sets up home in America.
These may interest Americans considering bringing wives to the States, and women who are married or intend to marry a foreigner.

Books Ordering;
These books can be ordered through Barnes and Nobel web book store, Amazon.com,
or by searching the author's name on the Internet,
and
The books are also promoted through the author's literary web-site on
http://www.proza.ru/author.html?nata888

 

Announce of the new books of Natalia Tkachenko (USA)

 

Published in Russian Woman Journal  3 November  2008

Family matters

 

Your emails, replies and comments address lana@russianwomanjournal.com