Psycho-socio-cultural rehabilitation in an ethnic subgroup: a 30-years follow-up

Around 3000 Jews from the (former) Soviet Union have immigrated to Austria between 1970 and 1990; the local Jewish community, itself numbering 7500 souls, was faced with the problems of the newcomers and found its own calculated means to solve them; the story of the integration of the soviet Jews in Austria is depicted from the view of social and transcultural psychiatry in a 30-years follow-up, in order to show the relationship between migration as manifold pathogenic stress and protective measures to cope with it, thus indicating methods for psychohygienic patterns in transcultural integration. The data used in this report have been gathered from (1) the special out-patient service of the Vienna Psychiatric Hospital (heads: 1970-1990 P. Berner; 1990- H. Katschnig), subunit for transcultural psychiatry (head: A. Friedmann); (2) Jewish Community of Vienna (Dept. for Social Services, dept. for demography); (3) ESRA, Center for medical, social, juridical, psychological and psychiatric help of the Jewish Community of Vienna.