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Effective Cross-Cultural Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Framework

Article  in  The Counseling Psychologist · October 1985

DOI: 10.1177/0011000085134006

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 Psychotherapy
EFFECTIVENESS IN CROSS-CULTURAL COUNSELING
AND PSYCHOTHERAPY: A FRAMEWORK
FARAH A. IBRAHIM
The University of Connecticut
This article considers some perspectives to
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
enhance effectiveness in cross-cultural
counseling and psychotherapy encounters.
A major assumption is that a coherent
orientation is needed that organizes the
human experience in the context of
individual world views within the
framework of existential categories. The
parameters of cultural awareness and
therapeutic cross-cultural relationships are
also discussed.
By definition, cross-cultural counseling and
psychotherapy implies "any counseling relationship
in which two or more of the participants are cul-
turally different" (Atkinson et al., 1979, p. 7).
It includes the circumstances in which the counselor
and the client are racially and ethnically similar
but belong to different cultural groups because of
other variables such as values, beliefs, sex roles,
age, education and socioeconomic factors. Coun-
selors who differ from their clients in several ways,
including race, culture, sex roles, age, life-stage,
educational background or social class have the
least potential in effecting constructive changes.
Counselors who are most similar to their clients
in these respects have greater potential for ap-
propriate assistance and intervention (Carkhuff &
Pierce, 1967; Pedersen, 1978; Schroeder & Ibra-
him, Note 1; Sue, 1975; Vontress, 1971). For
counselors and psychotherapists to understand such
a diverse set of characteristics regarding a client,
This article is an abridged version of an article appearing
in The Counseling Psychologist, vol. 13, no. 4, Sage Pub-
lications copyright.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Farah A. Ibrahim,
Department of Educational Psychology, University of Con-
necticut, Box U-64, Storrs, CT 06268;
Volume 22/Summer I?85/Number 2 S
a good starting point would be an understanding
of client world views, the philosophical assump-
tions inherent in the world view, and how it can
provide a skills orientation that can be adapted to
specific cultures. The approach presented here is
based on existential philosophy within the frame-
work of universal existential categories.
World Views and Universal Existential
Categories
A world view consists of presuppositions and
assumptions an individual holds about the makeup
of his or her world (Sire, 1976). Horner & Van-
dersluis (1981) consider world view "as a general
conception of the humans' place in the universe,
and of factors that cause human beings to act and
interact in the way they do" (p. 33). Sue (1978)
defines world view as how a person perceives his
or her relationship to the world (nature, institutions,
other people, things, etc.). World view is a cul-
turally based variable that influences the relation-
ship between the counselor and the client (Horner
& Vandersluis, 1981).
In general, when counselor and client share
similar though not identical views, communication
between them is likely to be clear. However, when
differences exist, counselors and psychotherapists
can fall prey to making negative judgments about
their client's concerns, behaviors, perceptions,
attitudes, and values. Maruyama (1978) states that
communication breakdowns occur not because
people use different vocabularies or language to
discuss the same constructs, but because they use
different structures of reasoning that stem from
their philosophy of life, world view, or episte-
mology (or belief system).
Kluckhohn's (1951, 1956) existential categories
for understanding values, beliefs, and attitudes in
regard to people, their nature, the relation between
people and nature, time, and activity perspectives
provide a useful framework for understanding the
complexities of world views and have considerable
321
 Farah A. Ibrahim
utility for assisting the counselor and psycho-
therapist in understanding themselves and their
clients from different cultural backgrounds.
The client's experience is the most important
source of information determining how an indi-
vidual's cognitive activities such as valuing and
judging and emotional (affective) factors interact
with the conditions of one's life to form internal
experiences. The focus must be on the client; it
is essential to find out how each individual rep-
resents the world before taking action to produce
change. Such a helper stance is meaningful in all
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
contexts (Kelly, 1955) but especially powerful in
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
cross-cultural counseling. The role of the psy-
chotherapist is to assist the client in integrating
aspects of his or her world view to maximize
effectiveness and psychological well-being (Sue
& Sue, 1977). Effectiveness in cross-cultural
counseling is determined by how well the helper
understands and accepts the world view of the
client.
Cultural Awareness in Counseling and
Psychotherapy
Kroeber & Kluckhohn (1952) define culture as
"patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior
acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting
the distinctive achievement of human groups, in-
cluding their embodiments in artifacts, the essential
core of culture consists of traditional (i.e., his-
torically derived and selected) ideas and especially
attached values, culture systems may on the other
hand, be considered as products of action, on the
other as conditioning elements of further action"
(p. 81). According to Linton (1945) culture is
"the configuration of learned behavior and results
of behavior whose components and elements are
shared and transmitted by the members of a par-
ticular society" (p. 32).
Wagner (1981) considers each culture as a spe-
cific manifestation or example of the human con-
dition. Because no infallible method has been
discovered for "grading" different cultures and
sorting them into their natural types he assumes
that every culture as such is equivalent to every
other one. He calls this assumption "cultural rel-
ativity." Furthermore, he presents the concept that
we as individuals belong to a culture and our
understanding of our own culture is called "relative
objectivity." Both cultural relativity and relative
objectivity imply a general proposition concerning
the knowledge of culture. The use of the term
relative suggests that the understanding of another
322
culture involves the relationship between two va-
rieties of human experience. Wagner (1981) stresses
that the idea of a "relationship" is important be-
cause it is appropriate to the bringing together of
two equivalent yet disparate entities than notions
of "examination" or "analysis." He recommends
that the only way a person can go about creating
a relationship between cultures is by simultaneously
knowing both of them, to realize the relative char-
acter of one's own culture through the concrete
formulation of another culture.
Therapeutic Cross-Cultural Relationships
In cross-cultural psychotherapy the concepts of
"cultural relativity" and "relative objectivity"
prove to be helpful. If counselors and psycho-
therapists insist on analyzing and examining clients,
they are persisting in setting up barriers by creating
an unequal situation. Counseling (learning) re-
lationships would be greatly enhanced if each
counselor (facilitator) considered the client as a
cultural equal and set about establishing a rela-
tionship between equivalent beings.
Practicing cultural relativity and relative ob-
jectivity frees the individual from the rational
classical objective approach. Absolute objectivity
implies that individuals should have no biases and
hence no culture at all. A major assumption for
culturally effective counseling and psychotherapy
involves an understanding of our own basic tend-
encies, the ways in which we comprehend other
cultures and the limits it places on our compre-
hension. It is essential to understand our own
cultural heritage and world view before we set
about understanding and assisting other people.
Reference Note
1. Schroeder, D. G. & Ibrahim, F. A. (1982). Cross-cultural
couple counseling. Paper presented at the National Meeting
of the American Association for Marriage and Family
Therapy, Dallas, Texas.
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Cross-Cultural Counseling
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