The theme of living between two cultures, both internally and externally, is very central to my personal and research process. It is as if having ‘one foot here and one foor there’…and I guess what is important is to be able to stand in a stable, grounded way.

When talking to Christa the other day about it, she told me that I remind her of the statue of the Colossus of Rhodes. This came up as a symbol with the ‘cards’ we were playing with on friday night as well. The Colossus, represented the God Helios and it is a vivid metaphor to reflect upon, since I am also having my feet in two lands (Greek-English). … Read more »

It feels like embarking into a research journey, the PhD process, is like a relationship with a lover…you sometimes adore them and other times just want to ‘kill’ them…I have been feeling ‘out of passion’ with the PhD for quite a while now, mostly due to my present personal difficulties in my life and how the Phd topic is actually related to my situation and my ‘wounds’

Following the workshop on existentialism yesterday, i spent most of the day today reading the PhD Thesis by Greg Madison on what he called ‘existential migration’…my personal story is definitelly in there and i have been trying to find links and triggers to formulate my own research proposal around counselling and culture…the day began with me feeling quite anxious and although I havent gone that far with my writing up for the panel, i kind of feel less upset towards the end of the day…am i becoming more tolerant of the topic and my relationship to it? Am i coming to some sort of inner acceptance? Am i just tired? Is it cause I earlier prayed that i receive some help to get away from that place of ‘stuckness’?  I am not sure what it is…it feels as if sth is changing but am not quite capable of seeing or naming it yet…please come…I am opening up

One of my anxieties around the possibility of returning to my original culture, Greece, to conduct my data collectionb research interviews is that I have an agony around whether i will ‘lose’ any of my competency and fluency around my english….and if that happened,how on earth would i manage writing up a 80.000 words PhD thesis? Maybe this is also ‘data’ as William would say but it does make me anxious amongst other things in cross-cultural transitions

BUT…it seems am not alone in this. In an email i received from Mariljke today (a Dutch therapist working in Scotland) she said:

I think i shall start recording some moments of recognition that are so valuable and will assist me in keeping up my spirits when things get stressful with the whole PhD work…i also want to do that cause i have made a ‘new decision’ with myself – at a personal level – to stop dismissing the positives but pay attention to them more and draw ebergy and inspiration. So, W, my supervisor, wrote to an email (19.4.97) the following rewarding comments: … Read more »

It is a few weeks now that the idea of creating a website and setting up online counselling practice has re-occured. This way of working would challenge the diffculties I am facing around counselling professionalism in my home country and most importantly, it would be an excellent way of accessing clients from different cultures and putting my cross-cultural skills in practice. I am also wondering how this would enrich the research process as well. It is an idea that really worths thinking about more seriously. It is not an easy decision and there are many parameters to be considered but i know others that have done it and dis well. An exceptional website is the www.counsellingresource.com. I also came accross an interesting article that can be found here. This is a matter i intent to explore further and am grateful to my brother who expressed his interest in dealing with the technical/management aspect of such a project