On the Threshold of Mentoring

This chapter considers a curiously under-considered stage of the mentoring voyage: the threshold of the journey, its initial liminal phase. It explores the construct of liminality, which is an inherent part of all significant social and cognitive transitions. The chapter examines the liminal phase of the mentoring relationship set against the specific, but necessarily unique, framework of the present author's practice. It also considers the implications of liminality for mentoring and provides a number of suggestions and recommendations that might be helpful for both mentor and mentee. The chapter briefly suggests a way forward on the threshold of mentoring engagements. Liminality belongs neither to what has been nor to what will be: it is a place unto itself. Liminality is the unstructured zone of possibilities, concerns, and reflections on the implications of changed status, roles, and identity associated with transformative events.