Counseling and Cultural Difference - Analysis of the Helping Relationship

Counseling and Cultural Difference

Analysis of the Helping Relationship

COU6340

Faulkner University

Carrie Hubbard

Counseling is a helping profession that shapes the approach to the needs of the client which offers a way to gain perspective on behavior, emotions, and relationships. It provides a way to express feelings and indentify patterns of thinking; alleviates anxiety, depression and anger which come in many forms. Gladding (2011), defines counseling as "The application of mental health, psychological or human development principles, through cognitive, effective, behavioral or systemic interventions, strategies that address wellness, personal growth, or career development, as well as pathology (American Counseling Association, www.counseling.orq/).

Counseling is a means for addressing pain, working through loss, adding meaning to life, and helps with developing communication skills for dealing with conflicts and frustration. Counseling is designed to provide help and support to clients by creating a climate of acceptance that will help the client to explore, understand, and generate positive action in life. Counseling is a process that can be instrumental in the development of skills that help individuals effectively confront and cope with uncertainties and conflicts. It can be for one person or a group of people and may be delivered through a number of methods, face-to-face dialogue, group work, telephone, email, and written material, but to yield a successful outcome, counselors must acquire the appropriate skills and competency necessary to become an effective counselor.

An effective counselor should be well equipped with specific skills to accompany their education. Counselors must acquire effective listening skills, active communication skill, writing skills, techniques and the knowledge of theories used in the counseling profession to assist clients with their needs. Core counseling skills need to be presented at the beginning of the helping relationship and by using active listing skills counselors can find out where the client stands on this journey. The use of body language, eye contact, tone of voice, and responding in an interesting manner, help to impart honest listening with empathy, which assists the counselor to engage with the client. Being embodied with commitment for the client with certain characteristics as well as competency will help in the client counselor relationship.

Counselors also need to have specific competencies to be well qualified in personality traits and the continued ability to learn about counseling trends. It is important to have competency of identity, empathy, socio-cultural awareness, and boundaries. Counselors must understand their identity so as not to get entangled in the client's world; this will help counselors with the ability to separate their story from the client's. Also this will help the counselor realize what they are capable of and when they should pass a client on to another counselor if the problem is out of their scope of practice.

Empathy is a necessary competency because the counselor must share the client's pain and show understanding as well as create a positive counselor-client relationship. If counselors lack competency it can result in unethical counseling for the client because it poses threats for both parties, the counselor may lose their positive reputation, and even their license. Competency is vital because each client is not of the same gender or culture and it is necessary for counselors to be aware of socio-cultures. Socio-cultural awareness helps to form counselor-client relationship through communication and understanding and as such counselor must respect the boundaries in the therapy-client relationship.

Within the counseling-client relationship, counselors must watch their relationship and how they manage their clients to avoid problems such as ineffective counseling, favoritism, exploration, and mental harm. Counselor must careful of the duel relationship that has been one of the most controversial subjects in the counseling profession. They are relationship that are non-professional in nature and can come on easily with client as counselors befriend them personally. "Counselor competence, in the ethical sense, means that the counselor or therapist is capable of performing a minimum quality of service that the service provided is clearly within the limits of training (Cottone & Tarvydas, 2007, p.44)."

CULTURAL KNOWLEDG IN COUNSELING

It is essential for counselors to understand their own culture heritage and worldviews before they can attempt of understand or help clients of different cultures. Counselor must have self-awareness of their own philosophies of life and capabilities before they can incorporate a greater awareness of their client's culture. Culture is defined by Gladdings (2011) as the shared values, beliefs, expectations, worldviews, symbols, and appropriate learned behavior of a group that provides its members with norms, plans, traditions, and rules for social living.

Culture is transmitted from one generation to the next and for some it is limited to the terms of ethnicity and nationality, which are important for individual and familial identity. The concept of culture in counseling usually goes beyond national and ethnic boundaries, it interprets culture in a broader aspect. Counseling assist with the subjective characteristic of culture which refers to internalized feeling, attitudes, opinions, and assumptions that individuals of certain cultures hold, as well as the objective, which involves visible viewpoints that are culturally adopted and determined. According to Brew & Kottler (2008) it is crucial for counselors to have a clear grasp of the influences within their own cultural identities and how they impact their beliefs and behavior; "Although true objectivity is impossible, this journey of self-discovery will better help you to become aware of your biases, confront your prejudices, and manage your beliefs in the best interest of those you are trying to help (Baruth & Manning, 2007)." This will help counselors be more effective with cultural diversity in counseling.

"Cultural diversity is the existence within a society of a number of varied groups with distinct values and lifestyles. Cultural diversity allows individuals ethnic groups to maintain their own cultural uniqueness while sharing common elements with the majority culture. Cultural diversity is also known as cultural pluralism and pluralism (Gladding, 2011, p.44)."

Counselors must also be competent in cultural diversity