Cross-cultural transitions and wellness: Dealing with culture shock

Abstract

Cross-cultural communication has emerged as a major concern for the helping professions in our multicultural society. Much has been written about recognizing the cultural biases inherent in all problem-solving and development models as well as improving communication between cultural groups. There are some situations, however, where culture itself is the problem rather than simply a communication obstacle to be overcome between client and worker. Counsellors may encounter persons who have been uprooted and transplanted, victims of culture shock, 'casualties of intercultural mobility' (Draguns, 1981, p. 11). This paper examines the unavoidable stress experienced when a person moving to a new culture finds that familiar cues from home are suddenly replaced with strange, ambiguous, and unpredictable cues in the new setting. A 'U-Curve' pattern of adjustment is offered as a conceptual framework for understanding the stressful period of adjustment in a new culture, and several predictor variables are advanced which may influence the degree of culture shock and recovery reported by individuals. The paper concludes with an overview of strategies for wellness, suggestions for promoting adjustment and learning in a new culture. CultureMore than simply a set of customs, culture constitutes a way fully characteristic of organizing life, of thinking and of conceiving the underlying postulates of the principal human institutions, of relating to and interacting with other intelligent human beings. It influences our way of experimenting with the universe, providing a combination of intermediate patterns which channel our feelings and thoughts, making us react in a particular way, different from those who have been submerged in different pattems (Gutierrez, 1973, p. 17).A culture can be understood from this perspective as a network of shared meanings that are taken for granted as reality by those interacting within the network. This view of culture proposes that a community of people tend to construct a common model or map of the world derived from their shared experiences and then use these pre-determined categories as a background or

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