WHEN YOU CROSS CULTURES - World Evangelical Alliance
WHEN YOU CROSS CULTURES - World Evangelical Alliance
WHEN YOU CROSS CULTURES - World Evangelical Alliance
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142 <strong>WHEN</strong> <strong>YOU</strong> <strong>CROSS</strong> <strong>CULTURES</strong><br />
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN<br />
DEFENCE MECHANISMS<br />
ACCOMPANYING<br />
CULTURAL STRESS<br />
People use unconscious adjustment mechanisms to deal with unpleasant<br />
emotions and painful experiences. These are called “defence mechanisms,”<br />
and they are used for self-protection. Defence mechanisms are neither good<br />
nor bad. Unfortunately, most people use them in unhealthy ways in their<br />
relationship with others.<br />
Cross-cultural situations can bring severe stresses and threaten our wellbeing.<br />
When we face cultural stress, we can choose to recognise certain<br />
symptoms of stress and learn to deal with them accordingly. Under stress, many<br />
will choose to use defence mechanisms. However, when defence mechanisms<br />
are used repeatedly, we are actually protecting ourselves from facing certain<br />
truths about ourselves. In other words, using defence mechanisms can distort<br />
reality.<br />
For example, a husband, who saw himself as a highly intelligent scholar,<br />
could not accept that his wife had surpassed him in learning the new language.<br />
On the other hand, his wife, who always saw herself as socially adaptable,<br />
hated making social blunders by missing subtle cultural cues. She realised she<br />
had to work hard before she could really feel free and expressive in the new<br />
language.<br />
It was easier for the couple to find refuge behind defence mechanisms<br />
than to face reality about themselves. But unless both husband and wife faced<br />
their inner problems, they would miss the opportunity to accept themselves<br />
with reality. “It’s true,” the husband can acknowledge, “I’m slower than my wife in<br />
learning the language.” She could say, “I need to study hard and also depend<br />
on God to help me understand and love the people no matter what they think<br />
of my social adaptability.”<br />
Facing reality, though not easy, will spare us from draining away our<br />
energies through efforts to guard some cherished illusion about ourselves. J.B.<br />
Phillips sounds a warning note in his translation of 1 John 1:8 that it is possible<br />
to live in “a world of illusion” with truth becoming a stranger to us.
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