강미 | learning koreanexpatriate + marriage + counseling + korea
To the person who came to my web site via the above search: Good luck.
In my personal experience, resources of that nature were not easy to find, and when discovered, were perhaps not what I would have chosen. Beggars can’t be choosers, so one makes do. In the event, resources back home weren’t much better, so perhaps the situation is not as dire as I make it sound.
Eleven years later, I can’t tell you what’s out there. We found our counselors through an organization called FOCUS (Foreigners’ Community Service). They have a defunct web site and two telephone numbers (797-8212 or 798-7529, in Seoul) that may or may not work. If you don’t live in Seoul, you may have to get creative.
We had two different counselors. One was the expat wife of an expat Ford executive who had some sort of counseling credentials (Canadian, I think), and we met in her home. The other was a professor (possibly Korean-American) at Sogang University, and we had sessions both at her home and her office. I think she was a psychologist. I am vague on several of these details, because I don’t remember them well. FOCUS counseling services were offered on a sliding scale based on income.
If you’re a reader who lives in Korea and knows of other resources, please leave them in comments. And if you’re someone who needs these services, don’t be afraid to ask. Relationship and mental health issues exist everywhere and may even be exacerbated by expat life. We all need a little help sometimes.
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