University and its Discontents - Cultural Psychology in Counseling

1. University and its Discontents - Cultural Psychology in Counseling Sándor Lisznyai, ELTE University, Budapest

2. Cultural Discontents vs Cultural Shock • Living in Hungary - experiences of foreign students • Hungary - unhappy people in an unhappy country? • Hungary - same for foreigners and Hungarians? • The culture of services and the culture of autonomy • Counseling - to be sovereign

3. Counseling; Encounter Beyond Cultures The false memory syndrome of language: You don´t remember - you reconstruct

4. Counseling Foreign Students - The Counselor • Managing integration - Gestalt Is! • Depressive symptoms and rehabilitation of the mentally ill • Psychodynamic orientation • Anti-psychiatric orientation

5. Counseling Foreign Students - The Clients • Mona - 29 years old from a nordic country. Living together with a Hungarian man for two years now. Experiences relationship problems, now having an alternative relationship and facing a serious decision.

6. Counseling Foreign Students - The Clients • Andrew - 30 years old, from a European country. He had serious conflicts at the university, and was charged with sexual harrassment by a female student. Applied to the counselor with depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation.

7. Counseling Foreign Students - The Clients • Sonja - 26 years old from a nordic country suffering from an addiction-like eating disorder (she regularly “stuffs herself” and then “throwing it up”) on which she can hardly reflect, uncertain about its seriousness. A topic of sexual abuse emerges regularly during the sessions.

8. Counseling Foreign Students - The Clients • Olive - 21 years old from a Middle-Eastern country. She has a problem with her mother - about whom she is worrying about. Her mother seems to misuse alcohol and could not find her place in the world, while her children left home and her husband is involved in their huge and prosperous family business.

9. Counseling Foreign Students - The Clients • Edit - a 22-year-old Hungarian girl from Transylvania, a part of Romania that has a large Hungarian population. She experienced a personal catastrophe after her fiancée committed suicide because of a financial breakdown.

10. 3 aspects where cultures intervene • Resistance • The culture and its discontents Cognitive appeal

11. 1 Cognitive appeal

12. Cognitive appeal - I. • Cl(ient, Mona): I feel desperate because I have to end my relationship… the situation, the circumstances force me to do it. I have always wanted to end it anyway. But I just cannot tell him what happened, it seems too much to bear it, the disappointment and the mourning of end it anyway… • Co(unselor): I understand, it is frightening to imagine how he will react, after everything seemed very calm and stable, even too calm and stable… • Cl(ient): Yes, and I feel I cannot end things, I am afraid of ending things at all… • Co(unselor): Well, after all, it is better to end something rather than to start it, hmm? (With a warm smile and the intention of create some flexibility in the situation using humor).

13. Cognitive appeal - II. • Cl(ient - Andrew): OK, our next meeting is in next Friday. But one last question, can I have one last question? • Co(unselor): Sure, go ahead. • Cl: I am in a desperate need to know… to know how to live through my life. I can see no reason to live my life, my experiences are totally negative. I find no true love, no true attachments, no true relations among people… People are dishonest and I can see no chance to find real value in life. I imagine that you can understand this, that you also had depression and depressive thoughts, but you still find meaning in life. • Co: No meaning in life? You mean, you cannot find a proper meaning for concepts like “love”, “attachments”…?

14. Cognitive appeal - II. • Cl: Well, I can see no meaning for them… I mean I guess there are no meaning of them. • Co: What is the meaning you would like to find for them? • Cl: Well, I mean relationships are about being true to each other, being honest and sharing a great deal of your inner self with each other, and not being dishonest and not cheating on the other… being confidential, handling the deep thoughts and ideas as confidential. Being on the same platform, sharing the same values… • Co: Well, I do not believe love is about sharing the same values… well, love is not about always telling the truth to each other. Sometimes quite the opposite….

15. Cognitive appeal - III. • “Patient: Because the others, the parents say “Why are my son’s grades poorer than that other person’s grades?” And then it looks bad for me. But I know I am doing a better job than she does. • Therapist: All right, then why do you care, why do you give a shit whay they think? They’re not firing you, as you said before. They’re calling you names. Sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never hurt you, unless you sharpen them up and stick them in your own breast, which you”re beautifully doing.” • (Ellis, 1970, in Hersher, Four Psychotherapies, p 71, italics in the original).

16. Resistance • Andrew: “At home we understood each other. We knew what is seriuos and what is just a joke with a girl.” • Sonja: “I sit here all the time and crying just without reason. It is so disgusting, being so weak.” • Mona: “Oh, it is not a problem what he wants. The place he wants to live and work, that is not a point.”

17. Cultural Discontents • Olive: “But she is so weak and neurotic. She needs medical help.” • Edit: “But it is important, to always have a safe harbour in your life. You are much too alone in life anyway, you cannot afford being without a man”.

18. Conclusion - From Integration to Intentionality • The “inner supervisor” can use cultural issues as indicators • Psychological counseling can contribute to the internationalisation of higher education counseling - as the most robust part in this sense