Cultural Counselor
Being a counselor can sometimes be a really tough job. Counseling can only be effective and beneficial when the counselor places himself or herself in the shoes of his or her client. If he or she is unable to do so, he or she will never become an effective counselor. Placing oneself in the circumstances of someone else is not easy, let alone placing oneself in the shoes of a person who is of a different race, religion or culture. That is the real test of a counselor. In this paper I shall discuss what is required to understand the cross-cultural relationships in counseling to help the client get over their problem easily. All the dimensions pertaining to counseling (of a client of a different background that the counselor) will discussed with the case scenario.
Case Scenario
When clients and counselors have different cultural (or ethnic or racial) backgrounds, the need to understand the multicultural diversity is most obvious (Sumari and Jalal, 2008).
I work for an organization where we counsel teenagers who have trouble socializing or generally have low self-esteem and low self-confidence. When a teenage girl came up to me who was could not make friends at school because she thought she was a misfit, I did not find it very easy to help her come out of her problem.
The reason for this was not that I did not understand what her problem was, but the reason was that she was an Asian Muslim girl who used to cover her head. Since other students were white Americans and from a different religion and race, she did not feel comfortable socializing with them because she was not sure what they think about her.
That is when I realized that it is very important for the counselors to be sensitive to the cultures and worldview of their clients so that they can treat them in a better way. There have been many reports in which it has been stated that most of the counselors are not prepared to deal with clients of a different background (Padilla, Boxley and Wagner, 1973).
Since I was not aware of the importance of Hijab, I conveniently told the girl that when you know that because of covering your head, you think everyone makes fun of you, you should just take it off. I would have never said that if I did not assume that this was not just a custom, but covering the head was a part of the fundamental beliefs of Muslims. I just thought to myself, what is the big deal, and that is where I went wrong. My prejudice and bias came in my way to become a competent counselor. The question mark in the eyes of that young girl was a proof of my incompetence.
It will not be wrong if I say that this young girl had reservations talking to me. This is because she was also aware of the religious and ethnic barrier between us, because of which she might have been cautious while talking to me. And I just worsened her fears by saying what I did because of my lack of understanding of her culture and religion.
When the clients do not reveal their real feelings, the counselors cannot understand what they are thinking. Many a times it is noted that the clients do not reveal completely what they are thinking because they are afraid that they might get exploited or offended (Sue and Sue, 2003).
Enhancing Cultural Knowledge
The problem that I had to face while counseling this young girl was not one sided. Where I was not able to understand that I have to go to her level of cultural and religious beliefs to counsel her in an effective way, she was also not very confident as to how she was supposed to put forth her problems. This was purely a cross-cultural barrier between us.
The first and foremost cross-cultural issue, which is also important in counseling, is the definition of self (Gilbert, 2002). When the counselor and the client are from different cultural backgrounds, both of them have their own definitions of self. Since self explains the inner world, beliefs and worldview of the client, it needs to be understood by the counselor and not just assumed as being the same as his or hers.
Other issues include the language barrier. Even if the client knows what he or she has to tell the counselor about the emotional turmoil he or she is going through, he cannot do so if the languages spoken by the counselor and client are different.
As mentioned above, the fear of being exploited and offended also keeps the clients from revealing their actual sentiments. This is especially true for minorities....
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