Most of my research participants talk, one way or another, about the issue of practising therapy in a 2nd language and its implications, both challenging and positive, something that appears to be one of the major findings in my research. there seems to be litearture on the matter (although most of it is focused on the client’s perspective again), but, i found this dissertation on the web that is interesting cause it talks about it from the therapist’s perspective. It is conducted in the US with spanish speaking therapists, available online (click here). Reference is Mount, C.D. (2007) Therapists’ perceived influence of language: 2nd language spanish-speaking therapists with native spanish-speaking clients. Bringham Young University: MSc Thesis.

on p. 3 the author confirms that ‘experiences of the bilingual client in therapy have received attention in the literature but accounts of the experience of the bilingual therapist are strikingly sparse’ . I also know that there is literature in the psychoanalyti tradition, also in relation to the matter in terms of transference and counter-transference but often i can’t easily access the journals due to subscription, will look on that

We had our monthly PhD group supervision today and as we were doing the ‘checking out’ round amongst the students in my group, we relaised that we all find ourselves drawing insights from Jungian writings, especially those related to archetypes. I think this is because all of us in the group explore some kind of human experience phenomenon in a qualitative, in-depth way and this somehow connects us to symbolisms and concepts inherent in what Jung called ‘the collective unconscious’, hence and our interest in that field. My fellow student emailed to me those 2 web-links about archetypes that i will look at soon, togteher with some Jungian books from the library:

http://www.myss.com/library/contracts/three_archs.asp

http://www.herowithin.com/arch101.html

Something that seems to emerge in my PhD research is that many British (or Anglo-Saxon) people i dialogue with in research interveiws and elsewhere appear to have a difficulty in holding into awareness issues related to cultural identity etc. I compare that with my own case where, coming from Greece, a culture thathas been masively invaded and as a result our cultural identity has been repetitively attached and under threat, issues of cultural identity maybe (just maybe) come out more easily and accesible in our process (althouh, still, many of my Greek fellows appear also to be ‘sleepy’ or ignoranmt about this whole area, vaccilating from extreme nationalistic views to total dismiss of heritage or anything relevant in the name of being ‘european’ = good enough). This is a very controversial issue. … Read more »

the concept of ‘globalisation’ appears to be relevant to my research and i need to do some more reading on it in relation to counselling. I have come accross this really good paper by Gilbert (available here) about cultural imperialism revisited in counselling. Also,  a paper about the effect of globalisation on counseling training in the US (here) . and, a site that seems interesting about researching globalisation, especially the subheading in relation to immigration (here). Time flies so quicky and so much to do really…i need to keep focused with reading, reflecting and writing drafts

I have been reading the book by Kerenyi, C. (2002, original in 1949) Jung and Kerenyi: the science of mythology. London: Routledge. I found this quote that is so relevalt to ‘heuristic immersion’ phase p.10: “Figurativelly speaking, it is a kind of immersion in ourselves that leads to the living germ of our wholeness”

In this book, Prof. Kerenyi analyses the ubiquitous myths of the Divine Child and the Maiden Goddess, drawing from Jungian archetypes. I often fild that Jungian literature is very relevant to my research, due to its deep roots to Greek mythology, amongst else, and i really need to immerse myself in it. Jung appears to be revealing what myths teach us about the inner world of the psyche. Will look at the library for more input, need to organise my reading