ARGUMENTS IN COUNSELLING AND THERAPY CULTURE

Are Counselling and Therapy Culture Bound?

Some theorists argue that current theories
of counselling and psychotherapy fail to account for the complexity of
multicultural or pluralistic societies, which have rapidly grown in numbers
within the last 100 years. Most theories, they explain, make assumptions about
the nature of mental health problems and intervention through counselling or
other means that are based on Western cultural values and expectations. Because
of this, counselling theories are seen by some critics to be culture bound
(i.e. limited by cultural assumptions), and cannot be easily adapted to the
counselling needs of people from other cultural backgrounds.

Assumptions made by culturally different
counsellors and clients have resulted in culturally biased counselling and
reluctance of people from other cultures to use existing mental health services
(D.W. sue & Sue, 1999; Pederson, 2000). Multicultural specialists have asserted
that the theories of counselling and psychotherapy represent different world
views…