Mental Health and Expats: Sunday 12th October 2014

This was the subject of monthly Living Room Dialogue, the first after the long summer break and we were privileged to welcome Dr Valerie Davis, The Psychiatrist and Regional Medical Office for the US Embassy Staff and families in what surely must be one of the most tense areas of the world.

She spoke with authority not only as a health professional but because she herself was speaking from the same experience. She spoke of the challenge of moving from one culture to another- responding to culture shock, of neophilia –the love of the new that characterises many expats and highlighted some of the unique problems that can threaten an expat’s health. She also, at my request, focused on the subject of bereavement, as we have experienced a number of deaths in the family of St Christopher’s in recent months.