Brain Drain Brain Gain

1
Brain Drain Brain Gain

• Psychological Impact of Moving Overseas to Work
• Supporting Your Clients With
• Culture shock
• We must be mobile, both mentally and physically

2
Were not all the same!

• People adjust differently to moving overseas
• Some will ride the waves pretty smoothly
• Others will crash and burn
• Some will ride but have to support someone else
  crashing and burning
• Many abandon
• All learn something about themselves

3
Honeymoon Stage

• Excitement
• Anticipation
• Everything is new, exciting and fascinating
• New people
• New friends
• New places
• New experiences
• This lasts for the first few weeks

4
Hostility stage

• Cultural adjustment
• New feelings of not belonging
• What was fun and exciting now different and
  strange
• People dont seem to understand you properly
• Rejection of new environment
• Idealising home country

5
Symptoms

• Frustration
• Anger
• Anxiety
• Sometimes depression
• Lack of motivation
• Fits of anger over minor things
• Changes in eating and sleeping patterns

6
Humour stage

• Slow adjustment of surroundings
• Settling into new culture
• Establishment of friends
• Can see the funny side of minor frustrations

7
Home stage

• Complete adjustment to new surrounding
• Feelings of comfort and belonging
• Established friends and routines
• Learned all the idiosyncrasies
• May feel more at home in host country and have
  feelings of fear about returning back to your own

8
Emotional reactions

• In the honeymoon stage you will probably be fun
  and attract positive attention
• In the hostility stage you will be taken for a
  psycho and massively avoided and talked about
  behind your back
• At the home stage you will hopefully have the
  people you like around you and who like you

9
Preparation

• Study the country you are going to
• Guidebooks, internet, friends family,
  embassies, watch films, read novels
• Sense of purpose
• What do you hope to achieve?
• Have some goals
• Be prepared for the unexpected

10
Good questions

• Who am I? What are my personal beliefs and
  attitudes?
• Where do I come from? What are my cultural
  beliefs and customs?
• Where am I going? What are the foreign cultures
  and customs of my destination?
• What am I going for? What are the experiences I
  want to return with?
• What am I willing to consider? How open-minded
  will I be in regards to my experiences?
• Knowing the answers to these questions is a
  good place to start in evaluating your current
  life situation and making adjustment to another
  culture less stressful.

11
Reverse Culture Shock

• Getting to know family friends again
• Not boring them with your anecdotes
• Feelings that nothings changed
• Feelings that so much has changed
• Not fitting in anymore
• Feelings of restlessness and boredom
• Idealising the host country

12
Top Tips

• Be conscious of not talking too much about your
  ace experiences may be seen as bragging
• Be sure to be interested in what has been
  happening at home
• Keep in touch with friends made overseas
• Give your body and mind time to adjust back
• Think about how you have changed and how you can
  use this
• Be adaptable, use your sense of humour common
  sense