Writings Yazılar

Perhaps one of the experiences that many of us cannot fully make sense of is the psychological impact of migration. When a person moves to another country, a strange feeling emerges: on one hand, the excitement of stepping into a new place; on the other, an unexpected strengthening of the bond with what has been left behind. It is as if the person suddenly finds themselves between two places — neither fully belonging to where they have come from, nor yet to where they now are.

Migration has therefore long been an experience that many thinkers and experts have tried to understand. Because this process is not merely a geographical change; it is also a displacement of the self.

Language sometimes carries the traces of these experiences. In many languages, the country to which one belongs is called a "homeland" — motherland, Mutterland, madre patria, mère patrie. This shared word choice is not a coincidence. But why "mother"?

Margaret Mahler's theory of separation–individuation opens an interesting door to reflect on this question. According to Mahler, the earliest and most fundamental relationship a person forms is with their mother. The first years of life are spent within that close, almost intertwined bond with the mother. But development also involves a gradual separation. As the child grows, they discover that they are a being distinct from the mother; a journey begins from closeness toward distance, from dependence toward individuality.

This process is one of the most fundamental yet most painful transformations in human development. Because separation also involves moving away from something loved and safe.

The experience of migration sometimes resembles this early story of separation. A person moves away from the land they are accustomed to, their language, their rhythms — in short, from the world that has become a part of their very self. That is why settling in a new country is not only about building a new life; it is also about placing distance between oneself and the familiar.

Perhaps this is why migrants often feel their bond with their homeland more intensely. Because separation, rather than weakening bonds, sometimes makes them more visible.

Migration is thus not merely a change of place, but a person's renewed encounter with their own roots. And perhaps it is precisely for this reason that, as we move elsewhere, the story of that first separation we carry within us quietly comes back to life.

Every farewell holds a sadness. Even when the relationship has become exhausting, even when peace has long been absent from it, separation still carries a sense of grief. So why is it so difficult to leave a place where we were not happy?

The answer to this question often lies not merely in the loss of a person. Of course, the absence of someone who has touched our lives creates a void in itself. The sudden change in our daily rhythm, our habits, our conversations is deeply unsettling. But is separation only the loss of a person?

What if we had thought of ending it many times throughout the relationship? Even so, the weight of the separation may not lighten. Because some losses run deeper than they appear.

Perhaps separation is not only from the person across from us, but from the self that existed in their eyes. In a relationship, we experience ourselves not only from within, but also through the gaze of the other. How they see us shapes our sense of who we are. When we feel loved, valued, understood, our inner world is reconstructed accordingly.

When a separation occurs, not only a "you" disappears; the "I" that existed within that gaze also changes. Sometimes a person does not mourn a relationship, but the identity they held within it — the experience of "belonging to someone," of "being amusing in their eyes," of "being found attractive," of "feeling valued." These quietly become the building blocks of the self.

Separation is therefore not merely the severing of a bond; it is the unraveling of a world of meaning. When a relationship ends, what remains is not only loneliness — it is the emptiness of a story that once carried us. And this emptiness, even in the most unhappy of relationships, is worth mourning.

Because sometimes what we leave behind most is not the person we lost, but the self that existed in their eyes.

Love — a state that everyone experiences in some way, yet that no one can fit into a single definition. Sometimes it fills us, sometimes it leaves us in emptiness. For some it is passion, for others it is peace, for others still it is pain itself. While one person's heart races for someone, another may feel nothing at all. So what is this thing we call love?

Perhaps the answer lies hidden in a person's earliest relationships. One of the theories developed by Sigmund Freud — the Oedipal phase — attempts to shed light on this question. It takes its name from the myth of Oedipus, a story in which a child unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother. Freud approaches this myth within a symbolic framework, for in his view some fundamental dynamics of the human psyche are shaped in childhood.

According to Freud, the Oedipal phase occurs roughly between the ages of three and six. During this stage, the child develops an intense attachment to the parent of the opposite sex. Yet this is not a genuine "desire to marry" — it is more an expression of the child's need for love, closeness, and belonging. The child places the parent at the centre of their world; they do not want to lose that parent's love, and they wish to take the place of the rival.

But this desire is unsustainable. The child begins to realize that this intense feeling cannot be reciprocated. This is where an important process comes into play: identification. The child identifies with the parent of the same sex — essentially saying, "If I cannot take their place, I will become like them." Through this identification, the sense of rivalry softens and identity development begins. The child learns social rules, boundaries, and gender roles during this process. The Oedipal conflict thus resolves, and psychic development continues.

According to Freud, the experiences of this phase lay the groundwork for adult romantic relationships. Because the first love object is most often a parent. Unconsciously, people tend to repeat the relational dynamics they experienced in that early period. If love was conditional, conditional relationships may be chosen in adulthood. If a parent was distant or unavailable, partners who carry a similar sense of distance may feel attractive. Because the familiar is safe — even if it brings pain.

This is why a person sometimes finds themselves in the same cycle. Always choosing someone difficult to reach. Always feeling insufficiently seen. Or always clinging to someone indifferent. According to Freud, this repetition is an unconscious attempt at repair — a wish to this time experience "correctly" what was missing in childhood. The psyche stages the unresolved scene from the past once more, this time in the hope of a different ending.

Perhaps what we think is love is not only the emotion of today. It is the echo of the past. The attraction felt for someone at first glance is often less about that person and more about a scene from long ago. And without realizing it, we spend our lives searching for the continuation of that scene.

If we look at our daily lives with some attention, we notice that we are surrounded by competition. Games are most often contests in which one wins and another loses. Sports are built on rivalry — football, basketball, the Olympics. But the race does not happen only on the field. In a job application, hundreds of people compete for the same position. Getting the highest grade at school, being the most successful student on a course, being employee of the month — all are part of a similar competition.

Such widespread rivalry naturally prompts the question: why do people compete?

According to Freud, the first traces of the competitive drive often appear in childhood, particularly in sibling relationships. Two children growing up in the same household share not only toys or rooms; they also share their parents' attention, love, and approval. One being praised more, another being seen as more successful, or even a simple comparison can lead children to measure themselves against each other.

This competition does not always manifest as fighting or conflict. Sometimes it shows itself as working harder, trying to capture a parent's attention, or striving not to fall behind. Phrases heard frequently in childhood — "look how hardworking the neighbour's daughter is" or "your cousin is very good at mathematics" — activate the same mechanism.

Lacan approaches competition from a somewhat different angle. In what Lacan calls the "mirror stage," occurring roughly between the ages of six and eighteen months, the infant begins to recognize themselves in the mirror for the first time. The reflection appears to them as a being separate from themselves — one that does everything completely and perfectly.

This image becomes a kind of ideal self in the child's mind — a self they wish to become. As the child grows, this ideal self ceases to be merely a reflection in the mirror; it becomes a lifelong, invisible rival. In every domain of daily life — hobbies, social relationships, new experiences, personal goals — one unknowingly races against it; every success and every mistake feels like a step forward or backward in this silent race.

Competition thus becomes not merely a desire to surpass others, but an ongoing struggle with one's own ideal self.

What we call a "symptom" in psychology often carries a complex, multi-layered meaning. Sudden surges of anxiety; psychosomatic tremors, headaches, nausea, or palpitations with no clear physical explanation; intense emotional shifts in response to a situation — in areas where the modern world reaches quickly for medical explanations, these psychological manifestations still create many unknowns.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty is that the person cannot understand how to cope with the symptom. Someone with a migraine knows which medication will help; but most of the time, they cannot predict how to manage a psychosomatic tremor or palpitation. So how do we cope with symptoms whose causes are not fully known?

This is precisely where psychology reminds us that we need to look not at the symptom itself, but at the internal conflict it is trying to communicate. These manifestations are silent messages that open the door to our unconscious world. But what is the unconscious? According to Freud, the unconscious houses suppressed thoughts, feelings, and impulses of which we are unaware. From around the age of five, in order to survive and adapt socially, a child pushes feelings that are unacceptable or anxiety-inducing away from consciousness — this is called repression.

Even when repressed feelings are pushed to the back corners of the mind, they cannot remain silent; they find a way to make themselves known. This is precisely where the symptom comes in: what we feel without realizing it is expressed through our body and our behaviour, giving us clues about our inner world.

The true aim is not to eliminate the symptom, but to understand the conflict it is trying to communicate. Why does our heart suddenly begin to race? Why does our breath suddenly catch? As we speak about it, we realize that we have repeated this same conflict many times throughout our lives. Perhaps we have always strived to be the best in the class; perhaps even in primary school, we struggled to make friends. The more we avoided thinking about these things, the more our emotions transformed into physical symptoms in order to make themselves known — as if saying, "pay attention to me now."

This is why a symptom is not merely a discomfort; it is a part of ourselves waiting to be understood. It is a silent guide, showing us our internal conflicts, our repressed emotions, and the issues we have not yet fully faced.