“Tak kenal, Maka tak cinta... “

From the topic, given by my lectuter, i have my own openion toward that topic. Briefly, what i have understand about that topic is, the “counselor to be” did’nt have to study cross culture counseling because it is waste of time. Instead, lecturer should focus and emphasis on equiping them with the skill and competencies for being good counselor. Calture have noyhing to do with everyhing that related to the counseling.

In my openion, i am totaly disaggre with that. It is because we have to know that four important thing that we have to practic and apply in every counselor are genuinness, emphaty, congruence and unconditional positive regard. I relate cross culture subject with the last statement ;unconditional positive regard. In counselig, couselor should accept the client as they are, without any judgements. What religious they are, where they came from, what is their status, what is their believe, what culture are they practising and so on, as a counsellor we have to accept it and give a warm welcome even thought we are different with them.

It is very important in every counsellor to study and teaches cross culture. As we know, all of us came in different place, believe, religion and other aspect. Culture is defined as; a set of ideas, beliefs, and way of behaving of a particular organization or group of people. With cross culture subject it will teach you a lot of thing that we have to deal when we get a client with a different culture. On theoretically, I am not expert yet, but then in practically, I will share my experience that related to cross culture.

At the first day of cross culture class, I got an order from my lecturer, who asks us to find a client and make ten sessions with our client. We totally have no problems with that. But he adds one more condition, who will be our client. We must look for international student or people that come out from our country. At first we are going to protest it but after we think that this is the time and opportunities for us to get better understanding about the others culture in the word, we accept that task with smiley.

At the beginning I fell very hard to find a client. I fell shame to approach and ask them to be my client. All of people that I ask refused to cooperate with me. After that, I change my mind. I would say to them...” can you be my friend, I just want to make a friend with you; I really want to know about yourself and your culture”. Alhamdulillah, I get one of the international student that excited to be my friend. I think at first, my mistake is I ask them to be my client. Of course they will afraid and wondering, who am I? At the first time meet them, I ask them to be my client? That is the big mistake. I have learned something new. I don’t have to ask them to be my client, what I should do is ask them to be friend of me...shared with me about yourself and your culture. I don’t have to be stereotype... the real goal that I need is to learn and know about the other culture in the world. I don’t have to make an interview session, but it just a chit chat from heart to heart about herself, her family and her culture. I just need to write in my mind what she had said.

From the first time I meet and talking with her until now, there is a lot of new thing that I have learned and discover. It is really fun and gives me a lot of new knowledge. Eventhought the culture is totally different but, when it comes to religious part, Alhamdulillah we practice it in the same way.

Why I shared my experience is that I want to relate it with counselling and culture. If my lecturer didn’t ask us to find the client with a different culture, how we want to know the various type of culture in the word? In the future, if we get the client with have a different culture, how we want to handle them if we don’t have any experience in deal with them. I am really thanks to my lecturer because give me that opportunities to get this meaningful experience. Thank you Dr.Siraje.

This is the third week that I’m learning about the cross culture, I find that it is very important to the student to learn this subject. It teaches and gives a lot of information related to culture with all around the world. With this subject, I also know how the different of culture can interrupt the counselling session if the counsellor didn’t know how to handle the out coming situation.

At the top of my opinion, I wrote “tak kenal maka tak cinta”. I just want all of us to open our eyes, open our heart, and open our mind to discover the unique of culture from all over the world. When we know and study the different culture, we are going to find something new and interesting in the various cultures.

As the conclusion, teaching cross culture counselling to trainee counsellor is a very important. In the same time the trainee counsellor must focus on the skill and competencies to be a good counsellor. Learning Cross culture and counselling skills are the both thing that comes together in order to be a good counsellor.

Thank you... (“,) king_smile.