Culture shock

Culture shock is the disorientation and anxiety that can follow moving into an unfamiliar culture. The anthropologist Kalervo Oberg described it in 1960 as coming from the loss of familiar signs and symbols of social life: how to greet people, when "yes" means yes, what a pause means. It is common, it is not a mental illness, and it usually changes over time.

What culture shock means

Most of daily life runs on cues we never think about. How close to stand in a queue. Whether you can call someone after 9pm. How directly you are allowed to disagree with a manager. At home these rules are invisible because you absorbed them as a child.

In a new country, many of them stop working at once. Each small exchange needs effort and guesswork. The tiredness this creates, along with the sense of being slightly wrong all the time, is what people usually mean by culture shock.

Where the idea comes from

Oberg, working with people posted abroad, published his short paper "Cultural shock: Adjustment to new cultural environments" in 1960. He described a rough sequence: an early honeymoon of novelty, then frustration and hostility towards the new culture, then gradual recovery, and finally adjustment.

Later researchers, including Colleen Ward, Stephen Bochner and Adrian Furnham in The Psychology of Culture Shock, moved away from neat stages. They describe adjustment as a mix of emotional coping, learning new social skills and working out your identity. People often move back and forth rather than in a straight line.

What it can look like in everyday life

Imagine your first winter in Brussels. The excitement of the move has worn off. A neighbour's brisk manner feels like rejection, a missed bus feels like proof you don't belong, and you find yourself irritated by things you used to find charming. That irritation is part of the picture, not a personal failing.

Or imagine you grew up in a Sri Lankan or Indian family where food is pressed on guests and refusing is close to rude. In Amsterdam, a colleague invites you round, offers one coffee and does not insist when you say no. You go home unsure whether you were welcome at all. Neither of you did anything wrong. The rules were simply different.

Some people notice it most at work, where feedback may be far more direct, or far more indirect, than they are used to.

In person-centred counselling

Culture shock can bring up older feelings too: loneliness, doubts about your worth, homesickness for people who may themselves be changing. If you moved for a partner's job, you may also feel you have no right to struggle.

A counsellor does not need to label any of this. The work is to understand what this particular move means to you, and what it is like to feel unsure of the rules every day. Some people want to speak about the practical strain, others about identity and belonging. Talking it through with someone who will not judge you for finding the new place hard, can be a relief in itself.

The expat loneliness topic and the online therapy for expats page cover this in more depth.

Related ideas

Culture shock overlaps with acculturative stress, but the focus differs. Culture shock usually describes the disorientation of the early period. Acculturative stress is a broader research term for the strain of adapting to a new culture over time, including discrimination and pressure on identity.

It is also different from reverse culture shock, the unexpected strangeness of returning home after years away.

When to get more help

If low mood, anxiety or poor sleep persist for weeks, or you are struggling to function at work or at home, it is worth talking to a doctor where you live. The expat wellbeing check-in can help you notice how you are doing. If you are ever in danger, call 112 anywhere in the EU.