reflection on cross cultural

prepared by :
shuhaida bt mohd azan (0816494)

Most people said that the counseling process should be managed or organized by the person who has the skills and competencies in counseling. The trainee counselor should be exposed with the cross-cultural counseling subject. In view of the fact that we are living in this country, which has diversity of culture and belief, surely we already exposed by the mixture of culture such as Chinese, Malay, and Indian. Since all the races breathing in the same country and hold the same voice at the group level, it is possible for us to discover other’s culture. The essential thing in the counseling process is the empathy. Empathy means we put ourselves into others circumstance. Empathy makes us understanding the client’s culture and creates better understanding so that we can solve their problem by using the theory and fix it so that it is suitable with our culture. As we know, most of the theory that we learn today is the theory that already cope with western culture. Besides, not all the theories are fix to be applied in our culture. Though, it doesn’t mean that our counselor should be expert in our own culture only, but, we should have better understanding for other cultures, so that we can do the counseling process in the proper way. Some counselor assume that the way he treat the client , who has very different culture and belief than him, is the best without knowing that the client has the different assumption of how we understanding her or him through the session. When the client understands with the different way, he may thought that the counselor actually do not understand them and refuse to seek the counselor afterwards he or she face the problem. It is very important to all the trainee counselor to put themselves on the client’s situation and have willingness to learn about their culture so that the counselor get the clear picture of their problem and think the solution which are suitable with their values. The important thing that should be remembered by all counselors is to clear out and have positive thinking about other races. The counselor shouldn’t have race conflict towards another culture which is called “racism”. Racism means the prejudice towards other races. The counseling process should be done without touching cultural sensitivity and increases their awareness about culture. The client probably has this type of assumption towards others culture because of some events or attitude of the other’s culture or probably he or she was surrounded by the conditioning which the society around them have the prejudice towards others culture. In order to understanding the client better, we should give them clear understanding and avoid prejudice thinking by using encouraging intervention which involving them and the community. The main point, do not ever build in racism in their mind and encourage them to have good social interaction with the society and the community. It can be achieve by having professional training and positive thinking. In order to avoid racism phenomenon, we should mingle and try as best as we can to correcting their wrong assumption and lastly to boost their expectation towards the counseling. To facilitate the society towards counseling, the counselor should endorse the positive attitudes and belief so that the counseling will be highly respected by others. Lastly, it is not waste a time to educate the trainee counselor so that they have better knowledge with another culture and willing to be trained and cope with the subject which included within the cross cultural subject.