Introduction
When a psychologist has to work with multicultural clients and solve their various issues, keeping their cultural background in mind, it is important to follow an approach so that it gets easy to at least lay the groundwork for solving any type of problem that comes ones way. The existential approach helps the psychologists in making the client see that life has a lot more meaning that he or she is assigning to it. Moreover, it also makes the client see that peace can come and be a part of one’s life. To add to that, this approach is very relevant because rather than highlighting things that keep us apart because of cultures, it focuses on issues which we all face in our daily lives, irrespective of our culture like love, death, pain, anxiety etc.
The Existential Approach
In this approach, the client is made to believe that he is not part of the healing process that the psychologist is trying to apply on him. And meanwhile, the psychologist does his job by making the person face all the anxieties and troubles that he has. In this approach, the client is being maneuvered and thus he might not feel at complete ease. But once, he has conquered his anxieties, the sense of freedom will be there. The psychologists may engage in a cost benefit analysis where the client is made to realize that he is leaving a lot behind or paying a high price for all the anxiety that he has taken on himself. (Vacc, 1988).
Strengths
One of the major strengths of the existential approach is that the client is made to see that his behavior is not restricted or worsened by his own behavior. Rather, it is the result of the cultural and the social chains that have taken him or her in its grips. This mindset is changed so that the person can break free from this trap. This greatly helps the person in taking the blame of every wrong happening on himself and he can easily realize that whatever was happening was a result of his mindset, which had been fogged by external circumstances, which he can control and bury. (Coleman, 1997).
Weaknesses
The weaknesses of the existential approach are that this approach is lacking on the fact that there is no systematic statement or presence of the field of psychology in this approach. There are no principles in this approach which relate to psychology and neither are there any practices which directly link to it. Hence, it is not formal and cannot be part of the psychology that is accepted. The existential approach can still be called a hypothesis and thus it has to be tested yet. It does not contain mystical language and thus this causes a lot of confusion among the students of psychology. Research conduction on the topic can also be a hassle.
Works Cited
Coleman, H. Multicultural Counseling Competencies: Assesment, Education and Training. Sage Publications. (1997).
Vacc, N. Experiencing and Counseling Multicultural and Diverse Populations. Accelerated Development. (1988)