Home sickness

Homesickness is the distress caused by being away from homeland, family and friends home. Its cognitive hallmark is preoccupying thoughts of home and attachment objects. Sufferers typically report a combination of depressive and anxious symptoms, withdrawn behavior and difficulty focusing on topics unrelated to home.

In its mild form, homesickness prompts the development of coping skills and motivates healthy attachment behaviors, such as renewing contact with loved ones. Indeed, nearly all people miss something about home when they are away, making homesickness a nearly universal experience. However, intense homesickness can be painful and debilitating.

Fortunately, prevention and treatment strategies exist for both children and adults. There are protective factors which can help people to cope with homesickness. Youth-serving organizations, such as the American Camp Association, have developed a homesickness prevention program. One study showed that this inexpensive intervention can lower the intensity of homesickness of first-year campers by an average 50%.

As an important side note when the elderly are moved, not of their own desire, into a nursing home and out of their own home they are more vulnerable to death due to the stress of homesickness. More studies are needed on this, however, the patient's dislike of the new nursing home seems to cancel out the care newly or better provided.

Homesickness is an ancient phenomenon, mentioned in both the Old Testament books of Exodus and Psalm 137:1 ("By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion") as well as Homer's Odyssey, whose opening scene features Athena arguing with Zeus to bring Odysseus home because he is homesick ("...longing for his wife and his homecoming..."). The Greek physician Hippocrates (ca. 460–377 BC) believed that homesickness—also called "heimveh" (old German word for "Heimweh") or a "nostalgic reaction"—was caused by a surfeit of black bile in the blood. In recent history homesickness is first mentioned specifically with Swiss people being abroad in Europe ("Heimweh") for a longer period of time in a document dating back to 1691. A normal phenomenon amongst the many common Swiss mercenaries serving in different countries and many rulers across Europe at that time. It was not uncommon for them staying many years away from home and, if lucky enough, return home if still alive. This phenomenon at that time was first only thought to affect Swiss people until this was revised, probably caused by big migration streams across Europe suggesting the same symptoms and thus homesickness found its way into general German medical literature in the 19th century. American contemporary histories, such as Susan J. Matt's Homesickness: An American History eloquently describe experiences of homesickness in colonists, immigrants, gold miners, soldiers, explorers and others spending time away from home. First understood as a brain lesion, homesickness is now known to be a form of normative psychopathology that reflects the strength of a person's attachment to home, native culture and loved ones, as well as their ability to regulate their emotions and adjust to novelty. Cross-cultural research, with populations as diverse as refugees and boarding school students, suggests considerable agreement on the definition of homesickness. Additional historical perspectives on homesickness and place attachment can be found in books by van Tilburg & Vingerhoets, Matt, and Williams.

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