I will soon teach a workshop titled “Cross-cultural counselling and the therapeutic relationship: exploring our cultural selves and cultivating cross-cultural empathy”.This will be my first teaching experience in my home country as a counsellor and interestingly enough i hold a lot of anxieties around that: How will the Greeks perceive me? How will I manage to teach in my first language when am so used to operate within my counselling role in english for years now? What sort of reactions will the topic of ‘culture’ provoke to the Greek colleagues? How will i be seen by the organisers, the Greek person-centred training institution?…I just realised that “what used to be my own/native culture is a whole new culture for me” !!! and i have so much anxiety around operating ‘within’ it…It is as if I have become a stranger, a foreigner in my own ‘home-land’…. This realisation, although anxiety-provoking, is quite interesting from a research point of view… … Read more »

I feel tired but had a very ‘full’ day, my brain feels like exploding-but it was worth it, it was productive!I had many meetings that left me with loads of info and processes to digest and reflect on. I will record the main points of the day, things that worth keeping in mind: … Read more »

I attended the BACP Forum in Coventry today, titled ‘Facing the Self’. I feel disappointed that I didnt find myself getting moved,excited or inspired…Ifelt like sth was missing, i was feeling that there was something incongruent in the whole thing although people seemed to be making conscious efforts to engage and voice things. I was once again frustrtaed by the whole discourse around ‘culture’ and ‘difference’, which didnt seem to match my experience

However, it was very nice meeting with C.L. and Sue S.I. after so long. I know I was feeling quite drained towards the end though and couldn’t engage much in further conversation. I am still contemplating around finding good research questions and it is frustrating that they dont come out easily, depsite my efforts…time for rest now…