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Abstract

Counseling is a product of Western cultures whose values have continued to dominate the counseling profession through the imposition of cultural assumptions as counseling services have spread to other cultures, demonstrating the generic centrality of culture to achieve competence in the counseling process.

Outline

Introduction
Cultural Bias in Counseling
Cultural Encapsulation of Counselors
Culturally Learned Assumptions in Counselor Education
The Cultural Grid Linking Counseling and Culture
Multicultural Theories of Counseling
Multiculturalism as a Fourth Force
Resistance to Multiculturalism as a Fourth Force
Conclusion

1. Introduction

Because all behaviors are learned and displayed in a cultural context, accurate assessment, meaningful understanding, and appropriate intervention require consideration of the cultural context when providing counseling services. Making the consumer’s cultural context central rather than marginal when providing psychodynamic, behavioral, and humanistic services strengthens those traditional counseling perspectives. However, because counseling first developed as a field in a Euro-American cultural context, counseling typically reflects Euro-American assumptions in textbooks, theories, tests, ethical guidelines, methods, and other services. The purpose of this research paper is to discuss the generic importance of making cultural context central rather than marginal to the counseling process.

2. Cultural Bias In Counseling

In 1996, a report by the Basic Behavioral Science Task Force of the National Advisory Mental Health Council (NAMHC) documented the extent of cultural encapsulation of mental health services. First, anthropological and cross-cultural research has demonstrated that cultural beliefs influence the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. Second, the diagnosis of mental illness differs across cultures. Third, research has revealed differences in how individuals express symptoms in different cultural contexts. Fourth, culturally biased variations in diagnosis vary according to the diagnostic categories relevant to the majority population. Fifth, most providers come from a majority culture, whereas most clients are members of minority cultures. If the standard practices of mental health services are themselves encapsulated, as suggested by the NAMHC report, these cultural biases will certainly influence the practical applications of psychology through counseling and therapy.

Counseling has typically assumed that there is a fixed state of mind that is obscured by cultural distortions and that relate behaviors across cultures to some universal definition of normative behavior described in textbooks. A contrasting anthropological perspective assumes that cultural differences are clues to divergent attitudes, values, or perspectives that differentiate one culture from another based on a culture-specific viewpoint. Anthropologists have tended to take a relativistic position when classifying and interpreting behavior across cultures. Psychologists, in contrast, have linked social characteristics and psychological phenomena with minimal attention to cultural differences. When counselors have assumed the same interpretation of similar behaviors regardless of the cultural context, cultural bias has been the consequence. The influence of cultural bias has led to the encapsulation of counselors by dominant culture perspectives regardless of the cultural context.

3. Cultural Encapsulation Of Counselors

In 2001, Ponterotto and colleagues described how counseling has a reputation among many minorities as protecting the status quo of the dominant culture by requiring minority clients to fit the dominant culture system even when that system is acknowledged to be unjust. In 1999, Sue and Sue described how these attitudes have resulted in documented examples of scientific racism.

In 1962, Wrenn first introduced the concept of cultural encapsulation. This perspective assumes five basic identifying features. First, reality is defined according to one set of cultural assumptions. Second, people become insensitive to cultural variations among individuals and assume that their own view is the only right one. Third, assumptions are not dependent on reasonable proof or rational consistency but are believed to be true regardless of evidence to the contrary. Fourth, solutions are sought in technique-oriented strategies and quick or simple remedies. Fifth, everyone is judged from the viewpoint of one’s self-reference criteria without regard for the other person’s separate cultural context. The encapsulation has not diminished over time. There is evidence that the profession of counseling is even more encapsulated now than it was when Wrenn wrote his original research paper.

In 1994, Albee described how completely psychology— and counseling as based on a psychological foundation— in the United States has been encapsulated during the past 100 years:

Most of the early leaders in psychology embraced ideological views that stressed the natural superiority of a white male patriarchy, the acceptance of social Darwinism, [and] the inferiority of women and of the brunette races. Calvinism stressed economic success as the hallmark of salvation, and psychology concurred. Anti-semitism and homophobia were standard. Eugenics spokesmen urged the elimination of the unfit and inferior and opposed welfare programs, decent wages, and safe working conditions.

These views continue to be held today, although sometimes in more subtle forms. The encapsulation of counselors is most evident in the way in which counselors are trained and educated.

4. Culturally Learned Assumptions In Counselor Education

The training of counselors has been characterized by conventional assumptions that reflect the values and priorities of the Euro-American cultural context. Table I describes 10 examples of these assumptions that Pedersen used in 2002 to demonstrate their pervasive influence in applications of counseling.

Counseling and Culture Research Paper t1 TABLE I Western Cultural Assumptions in Counseling

One way in which to challenge the universal application of dominant culture perspectives, regardless of the cultural context, is to separate behaviors from expectations in counseling. This will demonstrate how shared positive expectations (e.g., safety, respect, fairness) might be expressed by very different behaviors and how similar behaviors (e.g., direct/indirect, loud/ quiet) across cultures might be linked to very different expectations in a two-dimensional ‘‘cultural grid.’’

5. The Cultural Grid Linking Counseling And Culture

The connection between counseling and culture can be described visually in a cultural grid that includes individual behavior, expectations, and values on one dimension and the ‘‘culture teachers’’ of those individual characteristics on the other dimension. The cultural grid, as described by Pedersen in 2000, is an attempt to demonstrate the personal–cultural orientation of the individual in relationship to the many different cultures to which that individual belongs. The cultural grid shows an ‘‘inside-the-person’’ or intrapersonal cultural framework for demonstrating how cultural and personal factors interact. Through the cultural grid, each individual behavior can be linked to the culturally learned expectation on which that behavior is based, and each expectation can be linked to the culture teachers from whom those expectations were learned.

The cultural grid provides a systematic framework for the counselor to interpret each client behavior in the context where that behavior was learned and is displayed. The cultural grid demonstrates that there are many different culture teachers present in the counseling interview, with some belonging to the counselor and some belonging to the client. The cultural grid further provides a framework for comprehending the client’s culturally learned behavior from his or her point of view.

Pedersen pointed out that each cultural context is complicated and dynamic, influenced by many culture teachers who take turns being salient according to every time and place. An awareness of one’s cultural identity requires the ability to identify how each behavior is an expression of specific culturally learned expectations and how each expectation was learned from specific culture teachers. The culture teachers might come from family relationships, power relationships, or other memberships. Judging other people’s behavior out of context or without regard to why they engaged in the behavior or where they learned the behavior is likely to be misleading at best and totally wrong at worst. It is not easy to discover why people do what they do, but that does not excuse the counselor from the obligation to try. Unless each client behavior is understood in context, that behavior is very likely to be misunderstood by the counselor (Fig. 1).

The culturally learned assumptions on which current theories of counseling are based, such as those favoring individualism over collectivism, need to be reassessed so that the theories of counseling can be applied across cultures more accurately and meaningfully.

6. Multicultural Theories Of Counseling

One culture-centered perspective that applies cultural theories to the counseling process is found in a 1996 book on multicultural counseling theory (MCT) by Sue and colleagues. This approach is based on six propositions that demonstrate the fundamental importance of a culture-centered perspective:

Each Western or non-Western theory represents a different worldview.
The complex totality of interrelationships in the client–counselor experiences and the dynamic changing context must be the focus of counseling, however inconvenient that might become.
A counselor’s or a client’s racial/cultural identity will influence how problems are defined and will dictate or define appropriate counseling goals or processes.
The ultimate goal of a culture-centered approach is to expand the repertoire of helping responses available to counselors.
Conventional roles of counseling are only some of the many alternative helping roles available from a variety of cultural contexts.
MCT emphasizes the importance of expanding personal, family, group, and organizational consciousness in a contextual orientation.

As these MCT propositions are tested in practice, they will raise new questions about competencies of multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skill in combining cultural factors with psychological process. How does one know that a particular psychological test or theory provides valid explanations for behavior in a particular cultural context? What are the cultural boundaries that prevent generalization of psychological theories and methods? Which psychological theories, tests, and methods can best be used across cultures? Which psychological theories, tests, and methods require specific cultural conditions? MCT assumes multicultural competencies.

Counseling and Culture Research Paper f1 FIGURE 1 Within-person cultural grid.

Multicultural competencies have been developed by Sue and colleagues over the past 40 years or so. In a comprehensive description of these 34 competencies in 1998, Sue reviewed these multicultural competencies.

A summary of those competencies in three dimensions, emphasizing multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skill, can be described in three developmental dimensions:

Dimension 1. Counselors’ awareness of their own assumptions, values, and biases includes (a) awareness of cultural heritage comfortable with differences but aware of limits; (b) knowledge about oppression, racism, and discrimination; and (c) skills in self-improvement toward a nonracist identity.

Dimension 2. Understanding the worldview of the culturally different client includes (a) awareness of emotional reactions toward other racial/ethnic groups, (b) knowledge about the culture of the client population and its influence on counseling and society, and (c) skills in mental health issues of other cultures and active involvement with ethnic minority groups.

Dimension 3. Developing appropriate intervention strategies and techniques includes (a) awareness of religious and spiritual indigenous mental health resources; (b) knowledge about how counseling fits with other cultures, institutions, and assessments; and (c) skills in culturally appropriate counseling of indigenous people.

These three dimensions of multicultural competency have tended to be described as abstractions, and much more work is needed to link these abstract competencies to individual cases and situations. Ponterotto and colleagues did an excellent job of reviewing the literature already in print to apply the multicultural competencies in practice. As of this writing, Constantine and Sue are working on an even more comprehensive demonstration of how the multicultural competencies can be applied in practice. Applying these competencies in practice will reduce the number of racist incidents in the counseling profession generally.

The lack of trust in people who provide counseling services and the belief that the status quo was being held are documented in ‘‘scientific racism’’ and ‘‘Euro-American ethnocentrism.’’ According to Sue and Sue’s 1999 book, cultural differences were explained by some through a ‘‘genetic deficiency’’ model that promoted the superiority of dominant White cultures. The genetic deficiency approach was matched to a ‘‘cultural deficit’’ model that described minorities as deprived or disadvantaged by their culture. Minorities in the United States were underrepresented among professional counselors and therapists, the topic of culture was trivialized at professional meetings, and minority views were underrepresented populations in the research literature. Consequently, the counseling profession was discredited among minority populations because they viewed counseling as a tool to maintain the differences between those who had power and access to resources and those who did not. Making the cultural context central to counseling is in no way intended to diminish the importance of established counseling theory. In fact, making culture central as a ‘‘fourth dimension’’ will serve to increase the accuracy and importance of established theory.

7. Multiculturalism As A Fourth Force

In 1998, Pedersen examined some of the issues involved in declaring multiculturalism as a fourth force in psychology:

Significant changes are taking place, even though there is disagreement about the nature of those changes.
Multiculturalism has become a significant domestic force in most cultures, even though it may not yet provide a coordinated global perspective.
Multiculturalism has sometimes been used to rationalize oppression in countries such as South Africa; consequently, it has a bad reputation in those countries.
It may be premature to describe multiculturalism as a fourth force, although it has had a more powerful impact in the more applied areas of psychology such as counseling.
The U.S. version of multiculturalism is grounded in the individualist values of that cultural context more than in a non-Western collectivist perspective.
Within-group differences of ethnocultural groups, such as demographics, status, and affiliation, function ‘‘like’’ cultures regarding issues of age, disability, gender, and other special interests.
Cultural similarities (e.g., among youth-age strata) probably exceed similarities across generations in each separate ethnocultural group.
Multiculturalism will change not only the content of our thinking but also the very process of thinking itself.
Making culture central enhances the meaningful usefulness of traditional psychological theories in ways that might lead us to call this new perspective a fourth dimension rather than a fourth force.

Adding a fourth dimension of multiculturalism to counseling theory is not an easy task but remains a very important aspect of making the cultural context central to counseling.

8. Resistance To Multiculturalism As A Fourth Force

In 1998, Sue identified sources of resistance to the term ‘‘multiculturalism as a fourth force’’:

Some view multiculturalism as competing with already established theories of psychological explanation in ways that threaten the professions of counseling and psychology.
The terms ‘‘multiculturalism’’ and ‘‘diversity’’ are loosely associated with affirmative action, quotas, civil rights, discrimination, reverse discrimination, racism, sexism, political correctness, and other highly emotional terms.
To the extent that multiculturalism is connected with postmodernism, the arguments against postmodernism as a valid theory are also applied to multiculturalism.
Those favoring a universalistic perspective contend that the same practice of counseling and therapy applies equally to all populations without regard to cultural differences.
Others contend that there are no accepted standards for describing multiculturalism as a theory in practice and that it is too loosely defined to be taken seriously.
There are no measurable competencies for multicultural applications of counseling or adequate standards of practice.
Multiculturalism is too complicated, and it would be unrealistic to expect counselors to attend to such a range of factors simultaneously.
More research is needed on multicultural competencies, standards, methods, and approaches.
Multicultural standards cannot be incorporated into the counseling profession until all groups have been included.
Multiculturalism represents reverse racism, quotas, and is anti-White.

In discussing these sources of resistance, Sue pointed out the tendency to misrepresent or misunderstand the notion of multiculturalism and the dangers of that misunderstanding.

Although the task of reducing cultural bias in counseling is extremely difficult, it remains an ‘‘aspirational goal’’ of the profession.

9. Conclusion

In 1999, Sue and colleagues summarized what needs to happen for psychology programs to facilitate positive multicultural initiatives so as to include (a) faculty and student preparation in the development of cultural competence; (b) a multicultural curriculum in all aspects of education and training; (c) minority representation among students, staff, faculty, and administration; (d) an inclusive and positive campus climate; (e) recognition of culturally biased teaching and learning styles; (f) people providing a social support network and services that understand the minority experience; and (g) recognition that current programs, policies, and practices negating multicultural development must be changed.

Multiculturalism is not just a trend or fad; rather, it is a permanent phenomenon of social functioning that reflects the advanced technology of a world where international boundaries have been replaced by close interactions among people around the globe. As the primary support systems of the village and family are diminished in authority around the world, more and more societies are looking for alternatives to provide the necessary social support in their communities. The field of counseling is a promising alternative for many of the world’s cultures provided that counseling can be modified to fit with a variety of cultures and not merely impose Western or dominant culture values.

References:

Albee, G. W. (1994). The sins of the fathers: Sexism, racism, and ethnocentrism in psychology. International Psychologist, 35, 42–78.
Basic Behavioral Science Task Force of the National Advisory Mental Health Council. (1996). Basic behavioral science research for mental health: Sociocultural and environmental processes. American Psychologist, 51, 722–731.
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Pedersen, P. (2000a). Handbook for developing multicultural awareness (3rd ed.). Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association.
Pedersen, P. (2000b). Hidden messages in culture-centered counseling: A triad training model. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Pedersen, P. (2002). Ethics, competence, and other professional issues in culture-centered counseling, In P. Pedersen, J. Draguns, W. Lonner, & J. Trimble (Eds.), Counseling across cultures (5th ed., pp. 3–28). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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Sue, D. W., Careter, R. T., Casas, J. M., Fouad, N. A., Ivey, A. E., Jensen, M., LaFromboise, T., Manese, J. E., Ponterotto, J. G., & Vazquez-Nutall, E. (1998). Multicultural counseling competencies: Individual and organizational development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (1999). Counseling the culturally different: Theory and practice (3rd ed.). New York: John Wiley. Sue, S. (1998). In search of cultural competencies in psychology and counseling. American Psychologist, 53, 440–448.
Sue, S. (1999). Science, ethnicity, and bias: Where have we gone wrong? American Psychologist, 54, 1070–1077.
Wrenn, G. (1962). The culturally encapsulated counselor. Harvard Educational Review, 32, 444–449.
Wrenn, G. C. (1985). Afterward: The culturally encapsulated counselor revisited. In P. Pedersen (Ed.), Handbook of cross cultural counseling and therapy (pp. 323–329). Westport, CT: Greenwood.

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