Foreign counselling trainees’ experiences of practising in a second language and culture

We live in a multicultural, globalised world, in which counsellors and psychotherapists are increasingly required to work across languages and cultures. Existing literature, however, focuses largely on the needs and experiences of foreign clients, often overlooking the other half of the therapeutic dyad. This thesis tackles the under-researched area of foreign practitioners who work in a host environment. Given the ongoing cultural enrichment of counsellor education in Britain and the demanding character of counselling training in general, this work focuses on one sub-group of this population, namely counsellors in training. To that end, this thesis explores foreign counselling trainees’ experiences of practising in a second language and culture. Underpinned by hermeneutic phenomenology, methodologically this project draws upon the principles of Smith, Flowers and Larkin’s (2009) Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The investigation consists of two empirical studies based on semi-structured interviews with A) non-native speaking and B) native speaking, foreign trainees in their counselling placement. This research design aims to investigate the phenomenon of beginning intercultural counselling from a holistic perspective rather than compare the two groups’ experiences. Overall, findings reveal the numerous ways in which linguistic and cultural difference influence trainees’ experiences of beginning intercultural/interlinguistic practice. The experience of difference appears to mainly impact on trainees’ practitioner identity rather than their perception of practice. Despite the complexities participants encounter, their accounts expose self-efficacy, revealing a position of viewing ‘deficit’ as advantageous. Moreover, findings indicate that the more ‘tangible’ difference is, the more readily trainees acknowledge and discuss its presence in counselling practice. This is largely related to intersubjectivity and encounters with others during training and practice. At the same time, participants’ accounts demonstrate that ‘nativeness/non-nativeness’ is not purely a matter of linguistic mastery, but largely intertwined with familiarity with the host culture. To that end, this thesis proposes that counsellor education ought to address difference, and non-nativeness in particular, from a broader perspective, advance the support provided to foreign trainees and provide opportunities for discussion that will promote all trainees’ cultural awareness

'You look like them':Drawing on counselling theory and practice to reflexively negotiate cultural difference in research relationships

Located within a context of intercultural counselling research, this paper highlights the pertinence of the researcher’s reflexivity and cultural awareness in relation to research relationships. It draws on an excerpt between a white European interviewer and an Asian trainee counsellor discussing the latter’s experience of intercultural counselling practice. A reflexive analysis of a short passage aims to demonstrate how explicit negotiation of cultural difference within the interview setting advanced the researcher’s understanding of the participant’s experience, which was being investigated. The interrelated challenges, but also the importance of the interviewer’s preparedness to explore power imbalances in the research relationship are also examined, as are some key limitations of such endeavours. This paper underlines the usefulness of counselling skills in qualitative research, hoping to function as an invitation for more practitioner involvement in therapeutic inquiry

Discombobulations and Transitions: Using Blogs to Make Meaning of and From Within Liminal Experiences

We live in a digitalized world, where social media have become an integral part of scholarly life. Digital tools like blogs can facilitate various research-related activities, from recruitment, to data collection, to communication of research findings. In this article, we analyze our experience of blogging to suggest that they provide a useful resource for qualitative researchers working with reflexive accounts of personal experience. Through our personal story of engaging with blogging while traveling abroad to participate in a conference, we explore how we used the blog in different ways to concretize transitional processes, to engage in public storytelling, and to form a network of relationships (self, others, and blog). We argue that the technology of blogging is particularly suited to creating sense-making narratives from liminal or discombobulating experiences, and highlight the usefulness of understanding the production of data through blogging as culturally located within networks of relationships and normative discourses