POSITION PAPER NO. 1 BY NOR FAZELA BT. CHE HASIM (0724448)

“Teaching Cross-cultural Counseling to trainee counselors is a waste of time. Instead, we should focus on equipping them with the skills and competencies for being good counselors. These have nothing to do with culture.”

Culture, especially the less tangible aspects of culture which are absorbed in the process of socialization and in the course of lifelong incidental learning, is an invisible and silent participant in the counseling process. And the role of culture is even more obvious when clients and counselors of different cultural backgrounds encounter one another. (Dragus, 1989).

According to Dragus’s statement above, culture always come around in counseling process in conscious and unconscious way. It is means that, besides just focus on equipped with the skills and competencies to be a good counselor, they must seek as much as knowledge about their client including their culture, belief, religion, values, and so on. Hence, I’m hundred percent disagree if some people said that teaching Cross-cultural Counseling to trainee counselors is a waste of time. In my opinion, this course will help trainee counselors to improve their knowledge and also will focus on the problems and issues arising from values and assumptions that affect counseling with students, family, and persons of different cultural backgrounds. Counselor will be expected to interact with persons and families of different ethnic origins.

Culture has been defined as “the shared values, traditions, norms, customs, arts, history, and institutions of a group of people”. Why should we even be concerned about culture? First, understanding culture helps us to understand how others interpret their environment. Through this course, I got 1 assignment to find client from different culture. I’m so excited to interview my client because I want to know her culture and opinion about other culture. We know that culture shapes how people see their world and how they function within that world.

Secondly, understanding culture helps counselors avoid stereotypes and biases that can undermine their effort. For example, in Malaysia we have three major races which is Malay, Chinese, and Indian. So, counselor will face three groups of students at school and must be clearly understand the culture is all about. The stereotype that I heard before is the Chinese students believe that they are superior, the Malay students believe that the Chinese are looking down on them and the Indian students are not bothered with others. From that statement, we as a counselor should avoid stereotype and try to accept other culture as 1 Malaysia. It promotes a focus on the positive characteristics of a particular group, and reflect an appreciation of cultural differences.

Finally, culture plays a complex role in the development of human’s life. The development of cultural competence is a process not an endpoint because culture is such a broad, complex, and challenging topic. Counselors striving for culturally competent practice will work hard to understand their own worldview and develop cultural knowledge of other societies, such as learning about common beliefs, food ways, parenting practices, and other social behaviors.

In conclusion, like other’s opinion I’m agree that teaching Cross-cultural Counseling to trainee counselors is important and very useful. Cross-cultural Counseling occurs whenever the cultural heritage of the counselor and the client differ. Because culture impacts how we view the world, including values, beliefs, behaviors and others; cultural differences must be attended to if counseling is to be effective.