This article describes the author’s personal and professional dilemmas, encountered as a psychiatrist in the process of migration from Central Europe to New Zealand. The dilemmas include: (i) personal experiences in the stages of migration, (ii) struggles within the author’s own multi-ethnic community, (iii) biculturalism, (iv) the unexpected seriousness of psychopathology, and (v) the tendency for overidentification. Professionals in a cultural transition shouldbe aware that personal and professional challenges are interconnected. The concepts of loyalty, relational ethics and existential humanism were valuable in the resolution of these dilemmas.
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