Colleen Ward - Böcker

Crossing cultures can be a stimulating and rewarding adventure. It can also be a stressful and bewildering experience. This thoroughly revised and updated edition of Furnham and Bochner's classic Culture Shock (1986) examines the psychological and social processes involved in intercultural contact, including learning new culture-specific skills, managing stress and coping with an unfamiliar environment, changing cultural identities and enhancing intergroup relations. The book describes the ABCs of intercultural encounters, highlighting Affective, Behavioural and Cognitive components of cross-cultural experience. It incorporates both theoretical and applied perspectives on culture shock and a comprehensive review of empirical research on a variety of cross-cultural travellers, such as tourists, students, business travellers, immigrants and refugees. Minimising the adverse effects of culture shock, facilitating positive psychological outcomes and discussion of selection and training techniques for living and working abroad represent some of the practical issues covered.The Psychology of Culture Shock will prove an essential reference and textbook for courses within psychology, sociology and business training. It will also be a valuable resource for professionals working with culturally diverse populations and acculturating groups such as international students, immigrants or refugees.

Demonic possession, multiple personalities, spirit possession, self-healing, and exorcism--the psychological study of such phenomena has long been fraught with difficulties. A strong behavioristic approach in the discipline has resulted in a reluctance to examine internal, intangible, inaccessible mental states that are not readily amenable to experimental investigation. In Altered States of Consciousness and Mental Health, a distinguished group of contributors explores these and other phenomena from a cross-cultural perspective. They dispell common misconceptions, clarify terms, and resolve controversies surrounding the relationships between consciousness and psychological well-being. Historical, biological, psychological, and methodological factors are considered from a variety of cultural contexts. In addition, contributors provide fascinating case studies and interviews for each of the phenomena discussed. This ground-breaking study will be of particular interest to cross-cultural psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, ethnopsychiatrists, and mental health professionals who find themselves coming into increasing contact with these phenomena. "It is an important contribution to cross-cultural understanding of human thinking. . . . I would recommend it strongly to all psychologists and psychiatrists interested in trying to widen the perspectives of their basically Eurocentric disciplines." --British Journal of Psychiatry "An interesting and thought-provoking collection of papers in this emerging field which deserves to become a standard text in the years ahead." --Clinical Psychology Europe "What the book does is to open discussion and pave the way for more and better investigations of the phenomena of altered states of consciousness and their relation to mental health." --New Zealand Journal of Psychology

Crossing cultures can be a stimulating and rewarding adventure. It can also be a stressful and bewildering experience. This thoroughly revised and updated edition of Furnham and Bochner's classic Culture Shock (1986) examines the psychological and social processes involved in intercultural contact, including learning new culture-specific skills, managing stress and coping with an unfamiliar environment, changing cultural identities and enhancing intergroup relations. The book describes the ABCs of intercultural encounters, highlighting Affective, Behavioural and Cognitive components of cross-cultural experience. It incorporates both theoretical and applied perspectives on culture shock and a comprehensive review of empirical research on a variety of cross-cultural travellers, such as tourists, students, business travellers, immigrants and refugees. Minimising the adverse effects of culture shock, facilitating positive psychological outcomes and discussion of selection and training techniques for living and working abroad represent some of the practical issues covered.The Psychology of Culture Shock will prove an essential reference and textbook for courses within psychology, sociology and business training. It will also be a valuable resource for professionals working with culturally diverse populations and acculturating groups such as international students, immigrants or refugees.