1. Reverse Culture Shock
Sheray Felice
Newswriting 2001W
Kenny
11/8/10

2. • “In some cases, particularly where a
person has adjusted exceptionally well to
the host country, reverse culture shock
may cause greater distress than the
original culture shock,” says Robert Kohls
author of Survival Kit for Overseas Living

3. What is Reverse Culture Shock?
• Reverse Culture Shock is a phenomenon that
occurs when one returns to one's home
culture after growing accustomed to a new
one and experiences stages of adjustment.

4. 4 Stages of Reverse Culture Shock
• Disengagement
• Initial euphoria
• Irritability and hostility
• Readjustment and adaptation

5. Stage 1: Disengagement
• Begin thinking about going home
• Distance yourself from new friends and
culture you have come to know
• Excitement to see old friends and family that
you have missed during your time abroad
• Excitement as well as reluctance to leave
• Many times don’t fully realize that you are
actually leaving so don’t consider going home
a big deal

6. Stage 2: Initial Euphoria
• Finally are in the place you’ve known all your
life
• Excited to see your friends and family
• Friends and family excited to see you
• Popularity among friend/family group:
everyone wants to hear about your
adventures
• Feel special

7. Stage 3: Irritability and Hostility
• Initial euphoria wears off
• Realization that while people are happy to
have you back, your experiences don’t matter
that much to them.
• Feelings of isolation, loneliness, depression,
frustration, anger, helplessness,
disorientation.
• Become a stranger in your own country

8. Stage 3: Continued
• Feeling that people just “don’t understand” how
you’re feeling or where you’re coming from.
• Miss the country you were abroad in
• Become resentful towards home country and
customs you grew up with but are now foreign to
you.
• Although you have changed abroad, your life at
home has also moved on without you.
• Confusion

9. Stage 4: Readjustment and Adaptation
• Eventual acceptance of home country and
culture
• Readjustment into old routines
• Utilize changes you went through during
abroad period into your daily home life
• Life begins to becme normal again

10. When Stage 3 Lingers
• “Jen is always depressed. I had to make a
poster for her to highlight all the reasons why
she should be happy to be home,” says senior
Emily Salimbene on roommate, Jen Khamarji.
“She always tells me how great Florence was
and how she wants to go back.”

11. Why is Readjustment so Hard?
• “I studied abroad in Singapore my junior
year,” says 2010 graduate, Mary Hanink.
“Everything was so cheap and I was treated
like a celebrity there. People would stop me in
the street and ask to take pictures with me
because of my blond hair, blue eyes and pale
skin. When I got back to the United States, it
was winter, freezing cold and I wasn’t special
anymore.”

12. Who Can Help?
• Many times Universities have counselors at
their schools that help assist students in Stage
3 and bring them closer to readjusting home
• However, many schools seem to take Reverse
Culture Shock less seriously than Initial
Culture Shock.

13. What is Initial Culture Shock?
• It's simply a common way to describe the
confusing and nervous feelings a person may
have after leaving a familiar culture to live in a
new and different culture. ‘
• Going to a New Culture vs. Coming home.

14. Why Does RCS take a back seat to ICS?
• Many times counselors and the people who help
prepare you to go abroad want you to be
comfortable in a place that is drastically different
from home and very unfamiliar
• Reverse Culture Shock can go unnoticed because
of the assumption that you are surrounded by
people who love you and the feelings of
depression shouldn’t linger.
• You need to help yourself abroad while you have
a crutch system at home that can help you

15. When the Crutch System doesn’t Work
• Many times its not your friends and family that
abandon and isolate you when you return
• You isolate yourself from your loved ones
• Although going to a foreign country is difficult, many
times you meet or know people who are from your
home country and are feeling the same way as
yourself. Can talk to these people. They understand
• When you go home, many times you’re on your own
and while you know everyone, few to no people are in
the same boat as you…result: no one to talk to. No one
understands.

16. • “There were no mandatory reverse culture
shock meetings,” says Jen Khamarji. “I feel like
UConn doesn’t care that I feel like this. I
mentioned it to my study abroad advisor once
and she said it was normal and my feelings
should go away shortly.”

17. • “People change,” says Dorothea E. Hast,
assistant director of the Office of Study
Abroad at UConn. “That’s the main reason
why many students coming home feeling so
frustrated.”

18. Inability to Apply New Knowledge
Learned Abroad in Home Culture
• Changes abroad, evolves identity
• Loss of new identity when you return home
• “I never speak German at UConn,” says junior
Emily Hanink. “And the German courses here
are terrible, even the 3000 levels are just so
basic to me now. I’m worried about
plateauing.”

19. Getting Over Stage 3
• Surround yourself with friends
• Understand that your experiences are your own
and while they may not matter to your loved
ones at home they are still valuable
• Don’t lose touch with old ties to your foreign
country
• Talk to friends you made while abroad
• Utilize new skills in home country: Cook foreign
food, find language clubs in your area, etc.
• Keep busy

20. Works Cited and Reference List
• Emily Hanink: 860-337-1444
• Mary Hanink: 860-337-1825
• Jen Khamarji: 203-727-9300
• Emily Salimbene: 240-731-0505
• Dorothea E. Hast: 860-486-3609
Email: dorothea.hast@uconn.edu
• Storti, Craig. The Art of Crossing Cultures.
Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press, 1990.