Counseling Across Cultures

This chapter explores the concept of counseling across cultures and the development of the competency needed to effectively address the mental health issues of clients from diverse cultural backgrounds. The basic principles that underlie counseling across cultures are discussed. A conceptual framework for developing cross cultural counseling competency is presented. The cross cultural counseling encounter and its inherent challenges are introduced. The chapter deals with an overview of some important concepts for consideration when counseling with culture in mind. Counseling across cultures can be perceived as a working alliance between a counselor and a client that takes the personal dynamics of the counselor and client into consideration alongside the dynamics found in the cultures of both of these individuals. The perspective includes six propositions; the essence of which suggests that counselors need to embrace theoretical approaches that reflect the helping traditions of diverse cultures.