Counseling is a challenging profession that requires one to be able to relate and appeal to people from different backgrounds. Multicultural competence is a complex proficiency that requires counselors to possess cultural awareness, knowledge, and skill (Soto et al., 2018). Thus, counselors working with clients from various cultural backgrounds should recognize different cultures, be well-informed about them, and modify counseling sessions to account for them. According to Day-Vines et al. (2018), the client’s culture should meaningfully change the counseling process, as it is a significant contextual issue that shapes their unique personal experience. Meanwhile, the failure to consider a client’s culture can render counseling ineffective.
As a professional counselor, I would strive to learn more about my clients’ cultural backgrounds. Understanding one’s culture and the corresponding experiences, beliefs, and societal expectations can help understand the client better and show them that their needs are recognized (Setiyowati et al., 2019). For example, when working with a person from a specific culture, I would highlight the differences between the culture of the client and the mainstream culture. This approach would help evoke an understanding of how belonging to a specific culture changes the client’s circumstances and reframe them in a positive light.
References
Day-Vines, N. L., Booker Ammah, B., Steen, S., & Arnold, K. M. (2018). Getting comfortable with discomfort: Preparing counselor trainees to broach racial, ethnic, and cultural factors with clients during counseling. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling, 40(2), 89–104.
Setiyowati, A. J., Pali, M., Wiyono, B. B., & Triyono, T. (2019). Structural model of counseling competence. Jurnal Cakrawala Pendidikan, 38(1), 45–62.
Soto, A., Smith, T. B., Griner, D., Domenech Rodríguez, M., & Bernal, G. (2018). Cultural adaptations and therapist multicultural competence: Two meta‐analytic reviews. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 74(11), 1907–1923.