Study Abroad: Where Culture Shock Ends and "Ego Shock" Begins

By Marina Wolf

After months of counseling and introspective writing, I came to understand the reason for the anxiety and depression I experienced during and long after my visits to Russia: my entire sense of self--as an articulate individual, a savvy activist, a capable worker--had been blown away by the demands of living in another culture.

Before my first trip, I had not an inkling that such struggles might come, nor how to cope with them if they did. In fact, neither my university nor the first study program I traveled with offered much more than packing suggestions and safety tips. Administrators seemed to believe that talking beforehand about the psychological impact of living abroad is not effective, that the best results come from "reorientation" programs.

Unfortunately, the actual situations that trigger the traveler's questioning happen during, not after, the trip.

My friend Diane, for example, remembers vividly her summer of independent undergraduate research in the Middle East. She was as prepared as anyone could be for the intercultural experience. Most important, she thought, she wasn't like the other foreigners; she was no ugly American. In fact, Diane had long felt a distance from her peers: "The way I made myself feel better was by thinking, 'I'm not like the other kids and that's not a bad thing.' "

But Diane's carefully nourished identity began to crumble in contact with a culture in which Americans tended to be perceived as a group.

Those of us who travel for study or work share other qualities that may render us more susceptible to the blows of "ego shock."

We often are committed to goals with specific outcomes (attaining good grades) or to general causes (alleviating world hunger). Such goals may become so integral to our self-identity that failures to accomplish them can be emotionally devastating.
We are likely to be highly articulate in our native language and place great stock in our ability to communicate. If we are unable to retain that same facility in the new language, that too can wreak havoc on our egos.

The list goes on, with as many items as there are aspects of personality. But when we become aware--even dimly--of our egos, the selves we bring to the experience, we are much more prepared to cope with, and grow from, our travel.

Dealing with the Experience of Travel

One of the simplest tools for introspection is meditation, which Tassielli uses to start off her intercultural workshop at UC-Berkeley. She makes it clear that she is not offering a specific discipline of meditation. "I'm just trying to give this to them as a tool for whatever purpose they might want to use it," Tassielli says. "When you're hit with all kinds of new things at once, this is something that doesn't take a lot of time or space, but it's going to help you center yourself."

Another helpful self-awareness tool is journaling--that is, keeping a diary during the living-abroad experience. Tassielli gives away journals to participants in her workshops, but she says many people are resistant to the idea. Keeping a journal can be a truly adult practice that allows space and time for the traveler's self to unfold in the pages. Just moving a pen across the page can be soothing, and I have often found the results invaluable afterward as a record of where I've been and where I'm going.

Many intercultural books offer exercises and "games" that help us travelers become aware of our own biases and blind spots and teach us to suspend judgment--an important quality to cultivate during times of shifting self, says Dr. Annella Dalrymple, a psychologist in Santa Rosa, California, who specializes in transitions. "If [people] can suspend judgment of themselves and their circumstances for a while and look at it like Alice going down the rabbit hole-- 'Oh, let's see what's here'--with as little judgment as possible, they are more likely to get through the journey without too much pain and wounding, and come out the other side faster."

As part of being nonjudgmental, we should remember that we aren't necessarily "bad travelers" because we feel depressed or confused in another country.

And facilitators and administrators with study abroad and travel organizations should at least consider the possibility that not every behavior and attitude that a traveler exhibits is directly related to the clash of cultures. Sometimes it's just part of who a person is. Challenges to the self can be difficult, if not outright traumatic, and to send young people out without even rudimentary self-awareness and self-care techniques is like throwing us out to sink or swim. Teach us to dog-paddle, at least, and we'll go a bit further.

MARINA WOLF received her BA in Russian language and literature and lived in Russia for 14 months. She now lives in Northern California.