More than 4.9 million Brazilians live abroad, and those who return face a phenomenon known in science for over a hundred years as return syndrome.

Written by Bruno Teles

Published on 16/04/2026 at 03:55

Seja o primeiro a reagir!

The intercultural psychologist Andrea Sebben calls the “return wound” the shock that Brazilians feel when returning to the country after years living abroad, a phenomenon that gained strength with the increase in deportations from the United States and became a topic on DW Brasil

Returning to Brazil after years living abroad is, for many, more difficult than emigration itself. The feeling of estrangement in one’s own country, frustration with unmet expectations, and the silent shock of no longer recognizing oneself among their own have been named in the scientific literature: return syndrome, reverse culture shock, or, as the intercultural psychologist Andrea Sebben prefers to call it, the return wound. This phenomenon was a recent topic on DW Brasil and gained traction as a discussion precisely at the moment when the United States deported 2,785 Brazilians in 2025, a 69.8% increase compared to 2024, according to official data from the Itamaraty released by Veja.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs published an online guide in 2025 specifically to guide Brazilians returning home. The document acknowledges that the flow of return has been increasing for two main reasons: the global tightening of anti-immigration policies and the improvement of the internal job market. But there is no ready-made recipe for readjustment.

Why can returning home be worse than leaving?

The contradiction is cruel. A person leaves Brazil knowing exactly what they are leaving behind, but not knowing what they will find. They return thinking they know what to expect and discover that they no longer recognize it. This is what intercultural psychology calls migratory ambivalence: the desire to gain without losing, to achieve without giving up.

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What has science already discovered about this invisible shock?

The syndrome was identified during World War I, when European doctors noticed that displaced military personnel and civilians faced a specific psychological shock upon returning. In Brazil, studies advanced in the 1980s with neuropsychiatrist Décio Nakagawa, who followed decasseguis workers returning from Japan. Depression, anxiety, and the feeling of not belonging anywhere were recurring symptoms.

Psychologists describe the process as a U-shaped curve. First comes the euphoria of reunion, the relief of arrival, the smell of childhood food. Then comes dissatisfaction: the traffic, the informality, the social codes that the person no longer reads easily. Only later, with time, the line rises again and balance returns. Sebben argues that the minimum period to make any decision about re-emigration would be over seven months, precisely because readjustment is not linear.

Who can cross the migratory grief?

Maucir Nascimento, author of the book The Return of Those Who Left, shares one of these crossings. He lived in Australia for ten years and returned in 2018. He settled in the interior of São Paulo with his wife and two children. According to him, the secret was planning, self-knowledge, and avoiding the idealizations that circulate on social media.

On the opposite side is the case of Aline Milene Machado, a micro-entrepreneur who spent ten years in Germany and returned to Florianópolis in 2025. The first thought was that of someone arriving home. Seven months later, the traffic, the routine, and the clash between memory and reality won. She returned to Germany.

The opposite cases illustrate the same principle. Migration, whether returning or departing, happens more internally than externally. Those who prepare beforehand, create an honest list of pros and cons, and understand why they want to return tend to navigate the process better. Those who expect to find the home they left behind often encounter one that no longer exists.

The Brazil that the person abandoned continued moving without them. And they have changed as well.

And you, have you ever lived outside Brazil or know someone who returned after years abroad? How was the readjustment? Share here in the comments.

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More than 4.9 million Brazilians live abroad, and those who return face a phenomenon known in science for over a hundred years as return syndrome.

The intercultural psychologist Andrea Sebben calls the “return wound” the shock that Brazilians feel when returning to the country after years living abroad, a phenomenon that gained strength with the increase in deportations from the United States and became a topic on DW Brasil

Why can returning home be worse than leaving?

What has science already discovered about this invisible shock?

Who can cross the migratory grief?

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More than 4.9 million Brazilians live abroad, and those who return face a phenomenon known in science for over a hundred years as return syndrome.

The intercultural psychologist Andrea Sebben calls the “return wound” the shock that Brazilians feel when returning to the country after years living abroad, a phenomenon that gained strength with the increase in deportations from the United States and became a topic on DW Brasil

Why can returning home be worse than leaving?

What has science already discovered about this invisible shock?

Who can cross the migratory grief?

Seen from space, an image taken by an astronaut shows an unlikely oasis in the Saudi Arabian desert, protected by a terrain that slows the advance of sand, surrounded by green circles, remnants of an extinct lake and nearly 10,000 years of preserved history.

While the U.S. still faces limitations in deep space, China is developing unprecedented technology with strategic satellites that maintain communication with the far side of the Moon and aims for dominance by 2030.

In Botswana, a salt flat of up to 16,000 km² that was once an African megalake spends months as an absolute white desert, but during the rainy season it transforms into a shallow sea that reappears from nowhere and can be seen from space in the middle of southern Africa.

The Blood Falls of Antarctica hide a living ecosystem trapped under the ice for over 2 million years, where microbes survive without light, without oxygen, and without ever having seen the Sun.

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