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.Forcoalminers in Appalachia or textile workers in the French provinces, however, this proves tobe excruciatingly painful.Even for big-city workers uprooted by urban renewal and relocatedquite near to their former homes, the disruption is often agonizing."It is quite precise to speak of their reactions," says Dr.Marc Fried of the Center forCommunity Studies, Massachusetts General Hospital, "as expressions of grief.These aremanifest in the feelings of painful loss, the continued longing, the general depressive tone,frequent symptoms of psychological or social or somatic distress.the sense of helplessness,the occasional expressions of both direct and displaced anger, and tendencies to idealize thelost place." The responses, he declares, are "strikingly similar to mourning for a lost person."Sociologist Monique Viot, of the French Ministry of Social Affairs, says: "The Frenchare very attached to their geographical backgrounds.For jobs even thirty or forty kilometersaway they are reluctant extremely reluctant to move.The unions call such moves'deportations.'"Even some educated and affluent movers show signs of distress when they are calledupon to relocate.The author Clifton Fadiman, telling of his move from a restful Connecticuttown to Los Angeles, reports that he was shortly "felled by a shotgun burst of odd physicaland mental ailments.In the course of six months my illness got straightened out.The neurologist.diagnosed my trouble as 'culture shock'." For relocation of one's home, evenunder the most favorable circumstances, entails a series of difficult psychologicalreadjustments.In a famous study of a Canadian suburb they call Crestwood Heights, sociologists J.R.Seeley, R.A.Sim, and E.W.Loosley, state: "The rapidity with which the transition has to beaccomplished, and the depth to which change must penetrate the personality are such as tocall for the greatest flexibility of behavior and stability of personality.Ideology, speechsometimes, food habits, and preferences in decor must be made over with relative suddennessand in the absence of unmistakable clues as to the behavior to be adopted."The steps by which people make such adjustments have been mapped out bypsychiatrist James S.Tyhurst of the University of British Columbia."In field studies ofindividuals following immigration," he says, "a fairly consistent pattern can.be defined.Initially, the person is concerned with the immediate present, with an attempt to find work,make money, and find shelter.These features are often accompanied by restlessness andincreased psychomotor activity."As the person's sense of strangeness or incongruity in the new surroundings grows, asecond phase, "psychological arrival," takes place."Characteristic of this are increasinganxiety and depression; increasing self-preoccupation, often with somatic preoccupations andsomatic symptoms; general withdrawal from the society in contrast to previous activity; andsome degree of hostility and suspicion.The sense of difference and helplessness becomesincreasingly intense and the period is characterized by marked discomfort and turmoil.Thisperiod of more or less disturbance may last for.one to several months."Only then does the third phase begin.This takes the form of relative adjustment to thenew surroundings, a settling in, or else, in extreme cases, "the development of more severedisturbances manifested by more intense disorders of mood, the development of abnormalmental content and breaks with reality." Some people, in short, never do adjust adequately.THE HOMING INSTINCTEven when they do, however, they are no longer the same as before, for any relocation, ofnecessity, destroys a complex web-work of old relationships and establishes a set of newones.It is this disruption that, especially if repeated more than once, breeds the "loss ofcommitment" that many writers have noted among the high mobiles.The man on the move isordinarily in too much of a hurry to put down roots in any one place
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