Final Stage Of Adjustment Begins

 Final Stage Of Adjustment Begins

At about the eleventh month, the final stage of adjustment begins.  You may have learned a more functional way to deal with your stress.  You are more adept at communicating both verbally and non-verbally, giving you instant feelings of success.  You have learned to be more assertive in identifying what your wants and needs are and seeking out those things when appropriate.  You utilise withdrawal more for a time to retreat, rest and recoup rather than as a way to isolate yourself. As you look back to earlier months you feel a sense of achievement in all that you have accomplished. 

Full integration into the host country may only begin at the end of the second year.  You see yourself and your family as both participants and active members of your community with a sense of comfort and affection for your lifestyle.  Moments of sadness and feelings of loss may still be some thing that you experience, however, the frequency is less and you have the ability to grieve and then get on with your life. 

The above stages of adjustment are based on general experiences of a person's inter-cultural adaptation.  Each individual may experience some uniqueness in the  amount of time they find themselves in each of the stages and some persons may even find themselves 'stuck' and unable to progress onto a different level. 

There are many resources available for assisting in your cultural adjustment.  ICAC's Newcomers support groups.  ICAC Family Counselling Services and Orientation Program as well as orientation services of women's organisations, to name a few, can shed a little light on your feelings of despair and provide some real practical strategies for successful adjustment. 

The good news is that nearly everyone lives to tell about their international living experience and many of us even talk fondly about it.

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Culture Shock Part 2

Major Problems That You Feel
You Need To Cope With

There are three major problems that you feel you need to cope with.
They are:

1. Other people's behaviour does not make any sense. Host country, colleagues, neighbours and staff do things that baffle you and confuse you about their intended goal.

2. What you know about your own behaviour and reactions do not produce the expected results with persons from the host country and

3. It becomes more difficult to find ready-made answers or solutions to the new demands of your day-to-day existence. ii

As this period continues,
You wonder how you were so blind as to not see the problems that occur in the host country. You experience a real sapping of your energy from just daily existence. Goals and hopes for the future become less clear. You begin to grieve the loss of the familiar comforts of home, especially the social interaction of friends and family. Individuals in the family may react differently to this stage. Those fortunate enough to have a routine of work or school may have an easier transition. Unresolved marital and relationship issues may resurface during this stage as the family experiences more and more stress. Adolescents may 'act-out' their frustrations in anti-social ways.

For some, a real crisis can occur.
Strong emotions can take over such as anger towards the perceived irrational, behaviour of the host country inhabitants; depression at finding yourself unable to complete simple or routine tasks and panic at the prospect of the ruin of your sanity, health, career and family. This stage, the very bottom of the adaptation curve, may be accompanied by symptoms of ill-health, overindulgence in alcohol or food, conflict with family, peers and nationals, withdrawal, overspending and many tears. iii

The third stage is when you find,
Yourself in direct confrontation with the host country culture. Sometimes the options seem scarce. You can wait it out until things start to get better of their own accord, or you can take evasive action. Unfortunately, for some, evasive action means just that - taking the first flight home. Others find a congenial retreat of like-minded souls and spend the rest of their stay as far as possible from inhabitants of the host country. Those who make the most complete and successful adaptation, however, are the people who find ways to communicate across cultural barriers. iv
Other dysfunctional reaction to

Cultural adjustment are aggressiveness and dependence. Aggressive behaviour portrayed not only towards members of the host country, but also towards family members and other expatriate peers. Aggressive behaviour may get someone's attention and quick results, but at the expense of the long-term benefit of developing communication skills which foster trust and mutual respect.

Regression into dependent behaviour may feel safe and secure, however, this posture can increase the burden on the family member or friend. When significant persons feel overwhelmed with responsibility, they begin to resent the dependent person and shy away from contact. The strategy of depending on others for assistance in adjusting can back fire, leaving the person feeling even more isolated.

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Culture Shock

CULTURE SHOCK:

The STAGES of ADJUSTMENT Culture Shock has been described as “an emotional and psychological reaction to the confusion, ambiguity, value conflicts and hidden clashes that occur as a result of the fundamentally different ways of perceiving the world and interacting socially between cultures”.

The term 'culture shock' may be a new addition to your vocabulary if you are having your first taste of overseas living. The concept is something we should neither fear nor dread. The process of adjustment is practically inevitable and happens to all of us, even the most seasoned -international expatriates. Cultural shock is also not limited to a 'foreign country or culture'.
For those long-term overseas dwellers eventually returning to their home country, the re-entry process can also be 'shocking'. requiring time for adjustment and recovery.

The Culture Shock Process is an attempt to conceptualise the adjustment process as it relates to cultural adjustment. Depending on which author you read, there are a series of stages (from four to ten) which you may experience as you cope with the new situations in which you live and work.

If you were fortunate to have had ample time to contemplate your move to Indonesia, you might have had an opportunity to study the environment in which you and your family would be living. Pre-departure planning can assist greatly in a family's transition, however it cannot eliminate the inevitable – your personal and family's reaction to change.

With or without pre-departure orientation, you create for yourself preconceived ideas and expectations about the new culture. This helps you navigate in unfamiliar territory with a kind of road map. You may find yourself fascinated with your new surroundings, confident about your future and excited about the new possibilities for professional and leisure pursuits. This is the first stage of adjustment. Some authors refer to it as the 'honeymoon period'.

Personal reactions to this first stage may include astonishment, wonder, elation and excitement. You become intense in your desire to comprehend the differences in the host culture. Your communications home go on endlessly about all the novel experiences you encounter. There is drama in almost every activity, even the most mundane.

As with most honeymoons, the rose-coloured glasses come off after two or three months when the romance and novelty no longer exist. Frustration ushers in the second stage that can last six to eight months. The mood is more of confusion and surprise.

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