A main theme is my research is the whole issue of ‘up-rootedness’ and belonging or not, as a result of having the experience of living outsied one’s original culture, or even in one’s own culture, in more existential and culture-related terms. This is something i deeply experience also, this sense of not belonging anywhere, this question of what is my place in the world, where home is, where i feel comfortable etc. It is as if many cultures live within me and in each geographical area i am in, with the cultural elements, attitudes etc it brings, some different feelings are triggered, around comfort or discomfort, belonging or non-belonging. My supervisor sent me this thought below today, which is not only reassuring but also explains something that is relevant to the professional choice of becoming a counsellor. He wrote:
“We are counsellors because we don’t belong, we live on the edge and potentially can then empathise with people from other cultures. That is the resource within us that could be taped into for cross cutlural work. The other resoruce is our (child like) curiosity of the Other”
So, i see two skills being crucial in cross-cultural work, amongst many others. Those are: the capacity to exist in liminal spaces, out of comfort zones and therefore empathise with this sense of disrupted ‘at home-ness’ and the other one is having a balanched curiosity.
Something i have been wrestling with in relation to what happens when am interviewing my research participants has been the fact that often the interviewee cannot access easily the tacit or probably unconscious insights in relation to the experience that is exlored and we are often both left frustrated by ‘not having the words’ for something that is otherwise intuitivelly felt. when discussing with Colin the other day, he confirmed that this is very common, to his experience also, when researching cultural identity etc, it is something so deeply rooted within, with so many layers that is is not easily accessed.
During some interviews, i realised that if i disclose some of my own personal experiences and insights around what am asking, then the interviewee may identify some of that within and unfold their own story. … Read more »
In the name of reflexivity as a researcher, i often wonder how somebody else would approach my topic, how another PhD Student would write this Thesis and where i am at with it, what are the factors and processes that affect my vision and choices/decisions i make during the research process. Thinking about that, i came accross this revealing quote below that shows how research is ontologically complex and personal to the person that is conducting it:
“Process-sensitive scholars watch the worls flow by like a river, where the exact contents of the water are never the same. Because all observers view an object of inquiry from their own vantage points in the web of reality, no portrait of a social phenomenon is ever exactly the same as another. Because all physical, social, cultural, psychological and educational dynamics are connected in a larger fabric, researchers will produce different descriptions of an object of inquiry depending on what part of the fabric they have focused – what part of the river they have seen”
Kincheloe, 2005, p 333 and in Denzin and Lincoln (eds), 2005
A question i pose during my research interviews is inviting the participant to think of a metaphor/image that would describe them as therapists (what they have become as a result of moving between cultures/experiencing cross-cultural transitions etc). This is something that my supervisor advised me to do in order to invite more unconscious/tacit responses to emerge, as a way of unblocking certain experiences or feelings that may be difficult to be put into words. The metaphor of a Chameleon [means "Earth lion" and is derived from the Greek words chamai (on the ground, on the earth) and leon (lion)] is one that has come up often.
William has been writing a chapter about Pittu’s work and he came up with those relevant paragraphs, that also echo my personal experience, to some extent, he calls this section “Counsellor as Chameleon”: … Read more »
I read the paper: Comas-Diaz, L. (2005) Becoming a Multicultural Psychotherapist: the Confluence of Culture, Ethnicity and Gender. JCLP/In Session, Vol. 61 (8), 973-981
This is an exmaple of a paper written in a very personalised style which fits with heuristic research. The author narrates her own story around her cultural influences in her becoming a therapist. she mentions the terms ‘cultural translocation’ and ‘cultural osmosis’ which are very relevant and descriptive for my research.Also there is the term of ethnocultural psychotherapy defined as an approach that is acknowledging the centrality of culture and ethnicity in behaviour. There are a few useful quotes i wish to record: … Read more »
