["...at least in my village, it is the custom...". From stagnation to transformation of familial reality constructs in immigrants].

The overrepresentation of immigrant children in special-education facilities and their underrepresentation in the stationary and ambulatory child and adolescent psychiatric services is becoming more and more alarming. It is inadequate to understand the reality of immigrant families by focusing on the concept of the "back and forth" between two cultures. It is more adequate to understand the reality of immigrant families by making use of the concept of the "construct of transitional realities". This newer and more relevant concept of understanding the reality or situation of immigrant families is based on the method of ethnobiographic case reconstruction and case comparison. Through this new approach, it is possible to discern the ways and means by which some families living in a foreign culture achieve a more or less autonomous mode of living and how they succeed in overcoming difficulties when going from one frame of reference to another or from one phase of life to another. This report presents excerpts from a study of southern Italian families living in Switzerland. As drawn from the collected material, these families can be typified as: traditional-progressive, traditional-sclerotic, traditional-regressive. In analyzing these individual family biographies and the various constructs of problem solving, the general societal background is always taken into consideration by the author. Therefore, the three types of families are neither singular nor particular but rather universal.