1) Living abroad can cause profound personal growth but also culture shock, including when returning home (reverse culture shock). 2) Symptoms of reverse culture shock include restlessness, boredom, irritability with one's home culture, and longing for the host country. 3) It is important to anticipate reverse culture shock by considering one's changed values and adjusting expectations about home, and to maintain connections to the host culture through language, media, and involvement with international communities.

1. Reverse-
Culture Shock
What to expect and how to
prepare for going home.

2. T.S. Eliot
“We shall not cease from exploration. And
the end of all our exploring will be to arrive
where we started and know the place for
the first time.”

3. Living Abroad…
• When we are confronted with conflicting
values or views of the world we must either
accept or reject what we are seeing.
• Living in another culture can be a profound
experience that causes us to grow
rapidly, more so than if we had remained in a
familiar environment.

4. Culture Shock
(in host country)
Honeymoon phase
• Differences seen in a romantic light, fascinated
by new culture (enjoy new pace of
life, food, local habits).
• Associate with host nationals
• Full of observation and discovery

5. Negotiation Phase
• Differences between cultures become apparent
• Excitement gives way to anxiety, frustration,
anger and/or depression due to events that
appear strange, foreign or offensive
• Students may feel more pressure, lack of parental
support
• Language barrier or communication difficulties
may lead to sleep disruptions and negatively
affect relationship formation

6. Adjustment Phase
• Grow accustom to the new culture and
develop routines
• Concerned with basic living as things appear
more ‘normal’
• Develop problem solving skills
• Accept new culture with a positive
attitude, negative attitudes reduced

7. Mastery Phase
• Able to participate fully and comfortably in the
host culture
• Biculturalism: integrating with new culture
while maintaining important traits from
original culture

8. Re-entry
•Consider your expectations: What
do you expect will happen when
you return home?

9. Re-entry Shock
• An idealized view of home
• The expectation of total familiarity (that
nothing at home has changed while you
have been away)

10. Coping Styles
(Nancy Adler, 1981)
• The resocialized students wholly readjust
to their home culture rather than
incorporate the experiences from their
travels abroad. They remove themselves
from their foreign experience.

11. Alienated Coping
• The alienated person rejects the home
environment and consequently fails to
continue to grow from the foreign
experience.

12. Rebellious Coping
• The rebellious type reacts to the home
environment by trying to control it and
change it in unrealistic ways.

13. Proactive Coping
• The proactive individual is one who
grows from the foreign experience even
after returning home and maximizes
learning.

14. Being proactive means
being prepared
• Get organized: Keep a calendar with important
dates. Schedule time out for exercise, activities
unrelated to academics, and for cooking and
eating healthy foods.
• Journal your thoughts and emotions or share
your experience through writing
contests, photo contests, being an active
alumni, etc.

15. Symptoms of Reverse-
Culture shock
• Restlessness, rootlessness
• Reverse homesickness-missing people and
places from abroad
• Boredom, insecurity, uncertainty, confusion, fr
ustration
• Need for excessive sleep
• Change in goals or priorities

16. Symptoms of Reverse-
Culture shock
• Feelings of alienation or withdrawal
• Negativity towards American behavior
• Feelings of resistance toward family and
friends
• People at home do not appear to think beyond
the US bubble

17. Symptoms of Reverse-
Culture shock
• You can’t fully articulate your experience
• Relationships have changed
• Homesickness for your host country
• People misunderstand or don’t want to hear

18. Stages: Disengagement
• Begins before leaving when you realize
it’s time to say goodbye to new home
and friends
• Hurried departure may lead to feelings
of sadness or frustration with little time
for reflection

19. Initial Euphoria
•Begins shortly before departure
and is marked by excitement
and anticipation about returning
home

20. Irritability and hostility
• Frustration, anger, depression, alienation, lone
liness, disorientation and/or helplessness
(without understanding why)
• Feel like a stranger at home and/or less
independent
• Quickly irritated with others and U.S. culture
• Longing to return abroad

21. Readjustment and
Adaption
• Begin to fall back into some old routines
(but things won't be exactly the same)
• See things differently based on new
attitudes, beliefs, habits and personal
and professional goals

22. Total Adjustment
• Learn to incorporate personal changes
into new goals and ideas that don’t
negate your own culture’s norms and
values
• Attain a balance between both cultures

23. Surviving Reverse Culture Shock
One of the best ways to get through reverse
culture shock is to anticipate it. Don't think "it
will never happen to me." You're going to go
through a process of making your new life mesh
with your old life. Every country has a different
approach to life, and adjusting can be difficult if
you're used to a different set of social norms.
Integrate the best aspects of your abroad culture
with your old culture.

24. Consider Expectations
• Discard unrealistic expectations and try to
formulate those experienced by most people
when they make major life changes.
• You’ve changed, but people expect you to be
the same.

25. Examine your values
• Think about your personal values and the
values of your home and host cultures.
• Activities that help you understand your host
culture will also help you understand your
home culture better.

26. Avoid the "grass is always
greener" syndrome
• It is easy to dramatize how wonderful your
return home will be. It is similarly easy, when
you've returned home, to over-romanticize
your experience abroad.
• Be careful not to make a habit of
scapegoating: blaming others for your
readjustment problems. Neither life here nor
there is ever perfect.

27. Relationships
• If parents, siblings, or friends express
bewilderment or annoyance with your
behavior after you've returned home, this
could be a signal that you're either
experiencing reverse culture shock or that
your personality has changed as a result of
being abroad.

28. Revive relationships
• Realize that even if you’ve kept in touch with
your friends, they will seem different when
you return. You all have changed and had
unique experiences during the time you were
apart. Maybe she was studying abroad, too. Or
maybe he met the love of his life in the
university library while you were gone. You
may need to adjust to interacting in different
ways, but the distance you feel isn't
permanent.

29. Communication reduces
Reverse-culture shock
• Explain reverse-culture shock to friends and
family, and tell them this is what you're
experiencing. If they know what is happening
to you and that you're simply in the middle of
the readjustment process, they can be more
supportive and understanding of what you're
going through.

30. Maintain language
proficiency
• Enroll in a foreign language course or join a
conversation club.
• Rent Italian movies and foreign films.
• Stay connected to the world through global
news networks and newspapers with a global
focus (The Economist, BBC, Italian
newspapers, bloggers and magazines like
Internazionale).

31. Tips & Tactics
• Remember the coping strategies you
developed overseas and use them.
• Consider volunteering as a peer advisor for
your home university’s study abroad office.
• Join an international club in your community.
• Plan your next trip abroad.

32. Tips & Tactics
• Keep your sense of humor.
• Be flexible and open-minded.
• Focus on the positive aspects of returning
home.
• Practice patience with yourself and others.
• Appreciate the rare privilege of having two
"homes."

33. Surviving Reverse Culture Shock
“You may have internalized some of your abroad
country's philosophies, which could conflict with
U.S. ways of life. When I returned from abroad, I had
the hardest time being on time for anything. I was
always five, ten, or fifteen minutes late. In Ireland,
this was never a problem. In fact, it was expected. I
was slightly puzzled as to why my American friends
were upset with my lateness. I had forgotten that in
the U.S. being on time is highly important. Americans
are obsessed with their wristwatches.”
-Erin E. Sullivan

34. Tips & Tactics
• You may find that you tire easily, both physically and
mentally, so don’t take on too much too soon.
• Your old time and stress management tricks may no
longer work, so explore other options.
• Even if you can roll out of bed and go to class, you may
find yourself missing your walk to school each day. So
get up and go for a walk before your day begins.
• If your values and beliefs have changed, learn to
incorporate your new way of thinking into your life.

35. Surviving Reverse Culture Shock
“College libraries were not open on the
weekends while I was in Dublin; when I returned
home, I decided that I would continue to stay out
of the libraries on the weekend. I had adopted
the Irish sentiment that visiting a library on a
weekend was a ridiculous idea!”
-Erin E. Sullivan

36. Tips & Tactics
• Apply new skills that you learned while
abroad.
• Refrain from bombarding your friends and
family with nonstop pictures, anecdotes, or
perspectives of your host country.
• Talk to others who have studied abroad and
have already successfully readapted.

37. “Forewarned is Forearmed.”
•Anticipation of stressful events and
specific difficulties can help a person
rehearse for the actual situations,
should they arise…
•Role-plays

38. Further Resources
• The Art of Coming Home, by Craig Sorti.
Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, 1997.
• So You're Coming Home, by J. Stewart Black and
Hal Gregersen. Global Business Publisher, 1999.
• Students Abroad: Strangers at Home, by Norman
Kauffman, Judith Martin, and Henry Weaver.
Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, 1992.
• Strangers at Home: Essays on the Effects of Living
Overseas and Coming "Home" to a Strange
Land, ed. by Carolyn Smith. Aletheia
Publishers, 1996.