Cross-Cultural Counselling
The following quotes have been taken from a workshop on cross-cultural counselling which I have prepared. I hope you find them interesting.
The cultural perspective compliments
" The culture centred perspective compliments rather than competes with traditional theories of behavioural, psychodynamic or humanistic counselling because the counsellors own cultural viewpoint is then applied to the clients cultural context"
(Paul B.Pederson 1997 Culture Centered Counselling Interventions p. xi thousand oaks , London, New deli, sage publication).
Culture as central to psychology
" There may well come
a time when we will no longer speak of cross cultural psychology as such.
The basic premise of this field- that to understand human behaviour, we
must study it in its Social-cultural context-may become so widely accepted
that all psychology will be inherently cultural"
(Segall,Dasan Berry and Poortinga 1990 Human behaviour in global perspective: an introduction to cross cultural Psychology p352 Newyork: Pergamon.)
Culture is not just ethnicity
- A narrow definition of culture as ethnicity limits the usefulness of the concept of culture in counselling.
- By widening the idea of culture to include more then just ethnicity the idea of culture becomes generic to all counselling relationships.
"
Cultures are maps of meaning
through
which the world is made intelligible"
(Peter Jackson, National Geographic, 1989 vol 196, no2 August 1999 p.314)
Ethical Decisions
Philosophical positions in regards to cultural and belief
All ethics are guided by one of three perspective's.
- Relativism: (It's all relative) - What is right can only be judged by the culture itself.
- Absolutism: (My way is right) - Imposes a single definition of what is right.
- Universalism:(We are fundamentally the same but culturally influenced)
The Universalist combines culture difference, fundamental psychological similarities, and context to arrive at a more accurate or at least useful representation of reality.
Flexible use of technique
" Everyone who seeks assistance for mental problems wants to be treated by an expert whom he can consider trustworthy (cf pederson, 1981) but the criteria by which someone is considered as an expert and as trustworthy are not the same in all cultures. The same goes for specific therapeutic techniques:
What is considered as useful and the credible in one culture may be thought of as stupid or immoral in a second culture. The therapist has to be attentive to these differences, and fellable in the use of therapeutic techniques,"
(Gus Vander Veer (p.101) Counselling and therapy with refugees, psychological problems of victims of war trauma and repression. 1992 john Wiley and Sons Chiceston)
Copyright © 2001-2005 Chris Lobsinger
Last updated 27 September 2005