Culture and Counselling

“If we are going to live with our deepest differences then we must learn about one another.”
― Deborah J. Levine

In a country like India where culture ethnicity is essence of society, we interact with people from varying background coming with different ideologies and perception. We get an opportunity to learn something new every day. Being a budding mental health professional, I have always been curious as to what role does culture play in counselling how does it influence the process.

To begin with let us understand how culture is defined or simply understanding what is culture

Culture has been defined as a group’s means of life passed on from one generation to different and it includes common beliefs, behaviours, object and bound characteristics common to the cluster. Individuals outline their themselves through culture, adjust to society’s shared/common values and contribute to society. Thus, culture includes several social aspects: language, customs, values, norms, mores, rules, tools, technologies, products, organizations, and establishments.

Culture consists of implicit and express patterns of behavior non-inheritable and transmitted by symbols and their embodiments in artefacts. The essential core of culture consists of ancient (i.e., traditionally derived and selected) ideas and their connected values. Culture systems could also be thought-about as product of action and learning parts of any action.

Having defined culture let us understand what is multicultural counselling

Vontress (1988) defined multicultural counselling as “counselling in which the counsellor and the client are culturally different because of socialization acquired in distinct cultural, subcultural, racio-ethnic, or socioeconomic environments” (p. 74).

Sue and Sue (2008) described multicultural counselling as, “a helping process that relies on both universal and culture-specific techniques to meet goals that are consistent with client values; recognizes individual, group, and universal dimensions of client identity; and integrates client worldview into the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of clients and client systems”.

Counsellors attempt to make a trusting therapeutic relation and provide a safe environment to the client for helping in healing process. Today, clients seeking counselling come from array of backgrounds, requiring counsellors to understand the different ways that culture impacts the counselling relationship. A lack of sensitivity to a client’s distinguishing background and experiences may end up in miscommunication, a client’s refusal to participate, and ultimately resulting in ineffective counselling relationship.

These consequences will open the door to accusations of negligence, resulting in discipline from your state licensing board or professional organisation, or perhaps a case. Some therapists argue that light variations between people could offend some clients, and so harm the therapeutic relationship, it’s usually believed that openly showing respect for someone’s culture and beliefs may end up additional effective treatment and a more positive outcome for each shopper and expert.

How sensitive are you to your own clients and of these who are totally different? Does one view different cultures as equally valuable to yours? Is your cultural group superior to another? Are you culturally sensitive to your own heritage and therefore the chance that you simply were schooled (perhaps unconsciously) to be prejudiced as an element of your upbringing? does one worth and respect differences? Are you attentive to your own values and biases and the way they have an effect on people who are culturally different? does one avoid stereotyping and labelling? does one monitor your own assumptions regarding those different from you? Are you willing to simply accept somebody of a distinct race into your organization, i.e., your society or your society? (Wittmer, 1992).

Read More: The Psychology of Prejudice and Stereotyping

Culture is seen as the field of human action, pointing to the close connection between culture and counselling practice. What happens in counselling, as in many other human processes such as education and child rearing, is to help the person discover and construct the possibilities of his or her culture. Counselling expands the range and focus of the fields of human action. Rather than narrowly focusing on a particular ethnic, gendered, or other group, cultural perspective is integrative and inclusive.

This perspective is important because it suggests that culture is not simply the context in which counselling occurs. Counselling isn’t simply a practice that happens in this or that culture. Counselling actually helps the person discover and construct the possibilities of action within cultures. The link between counselling and culture is much more significant than is commonly believed; however, this is not a view that is adopted explicitly by Canadian counselling psychologists. It is often assumed that culture provides a backdrop for the counselling process. (Boesch, 1991)

Multicultural Counselling competencies                                                 

The American Counselling Association (ACA) set forth specific tips for offering guidance services to ethnologically and culturally various populations in their ACA Code of Ethics. The Association for Multicultural Counselling and Development (AMCD) highlighted many competencies external link to attain in multicultural guidance. This three-stage organic process sequence guides the healer toward higher levels of multicultural ability in therapy.

Counsellor Awareness of Own Cultural Values and Biases:

A counsellor should be aware of any cultural values or bias that they have and acknowledge their boundaries and limitations. So as to increase their skills and aids, counsellors should recognize their own cultural background and therefore the effects of repression, discrimination on race and caste and stereotyping. Counsellors should conjointly search down further learning prospects to improve and develop their understanding of various diverse population.

Counsellor Awareness of Client’s Worldview:

Counsellor should accept that their client’s worldview is completely diverse than their own. To get this knowledge, they should bear in mind of their subjective responses to other culturally different groups, have data of the people with people they work, and update themselves with culturally applicable study. Psychological state and school counsellors competence in multicultural counselling acknowledge that a client’s race and culture influence their temperament, ability to make decisions, occupational choice, and motives for or readiness to pursue any counselling or guidance.

Cultural Kaleidoscope: Learn about Cross-Cultural Psychology

Culturally applicable Intervention Strategies:

A counsellor with culturally competent ability respects their client’s non-secular views, morals, principles, native practices, and languages. Counsellors should perceive the effect of therapy and its influence on cultural groups and ought to conjointly maintain information of family dynamics, heredity, bias in assessments, and unfair practices that will impact their client. Mental health professionals who are culturally competent are equipped to interact in verbally and non-verbally– that surpasses race or status and removes prejudice.

I have personally been very interested about understanding and learning about different cultures and understanding their beliefs. We as counsellors need to be flexible and adaptable to our clients and the beliefs, they bring in. I have worked in different setups like hospitals, ngo, clinics and I have had the opportunity to interact with clients from varying backgrounds. In a country like India where there is a vast diversity we also need to be open to different experiences in our practice.

I have done my internships in different settings in different states of India I have learnt the following:

• Culture can be defined in multiple ways which may include our religion, caste, socio-economic background, gender-related norms. We all have our unique way of defining our culture and there are certain beliefs, practices, superstition associated with it. Before we start diagnosing our client’s and start associating their symptoms with particular understand their culture which will be give you a thorough knowledge about their background and about their thought process.
• The more we interact with our clients the more we learn the more we grow as a counsellor and as a person, we develop understanding of how we can work with people from different background and learn from their experiences.
• We become aware of our own prejudices and stereotypes, multicultural settings give us an opportunity to self-reflect and work on our own thought processes. We start understanding how we can more empathetic to our clients and see things from their perspective.
• We are continuously improving our skills when working in multicultural setting. We become more flexible with our approach, we are more open to new experiences that our clients bring in, we adapt ourselves according to our client’s needs.
• Culture is seen as playing an important role in counselling as it provides background of the individual and it contributes to forming a holistic intervention plan and contributes to developing multicultural competence of the counsellor. Counsellors strive evolve throughout the years of practice.
• Nowadays, clients looking for counselling come from a range of backgrounds, needing counsellors to be aware and recognizes the numerous ways in which culture influences the therapeutic relationship.
• Learning to see the situation from client’s perspective is an essential part of counselling to be able to his/her mindset in context of culture and problems faced by clients/students
• A counsellor constantly keep him/herself updated with upcoming research and trends in the field.
• We may follow different model to understand multidimensional aspects of clients, one such model is RESPECTFUL model.

The RESPECTFUL Model

The RESPECTFUL model was developed with one goal in mind: “to recognize the multidimensionality of all clients in a comprehensive and integrative way”. It was developed by Michael D’Andrea, Ed.D. and Judy Daniels in 1997 and involves ten different factors that affect an individual’s psychological growth and their sense of personal well-being.

The factors include the following:

• Religious-Spiritual Identity
• Economic Class Background
• Sexual Identity
• Psychological Maturity
• Ethnic-Cultural-Racial Identity
• Chronological Developmental Challenges
• Trauma and Other Threats to One’s Well-Being
• Family History and Dynamics
• Unique Physical Characteristics
• Location of Residence and Language Differences

I’ll end this article with a simple quote by Carl rogers

“To my mind, empathy is in itself a healing agent. It is one of the most potent aspects of therapy, because it releases, it confirms, it brings even the most frightened client into the human race. If a person is understood, he or she belongs.”