Professional Affiliation

Master’s Candidate, The Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University, South Korea.

Expert Bio

YooRi Kang is a master's candidate in Peace and Global Governance at The Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University. She has earned her bachelor’s degree at Handong Global University majoring in Counseling and Entrepreneurship. She has been interested in research on how to help developing countries and help to promote world peace through counseling and nourishing entrepreneurship mindset in people’s minds as a major tool. As part of achieving the life vision, she wants to learn on operations of various area studies applicable to North Korea which can help shed light on an approach to the nuclear proliferation, disarmament, and human rights problem of North Korea and how to apply her professional skills in the fields of psychological counseling and entrepreneurship, ultimately to help solve the regional problems within the relationship between North and South Korea.

Wilson Center Project

"Korean Reunification from a Psychological Perspective: The Importance and Process of Therapy"

Project Summary

Two Koreans share more differences than commonalities although they have been one country until 1945. But with the common ancestry and having fought against each other in Korean War, they also share a commonality in inner sufferings: hurts and hatred as well as distortions of “self” (false-self), but in North Korea, much more due to the prolonged suffering under the evilest government in history. As such, both have flaws and things they would rather avoid, which need to be addressed for the reunification. The most daunting and colossal task at hand is how to assimilate the 25 million North Koreans into the society with dignity after the reunification, who have been deprived of the ability to carry on one’s dignified life in their entire life under the evil regime. It is YooRi’s research aims to bring up its importance and its approaches for healing the both to help bond them.