Teaching cross-cultural to trainee Counselors is a waste of time. Instead, we should focus on equipping them with the skills and competencies for bein

NURASIKIN A.HALIM 0814226
Cross-culture can be defined as different type of culture. Meanwhile, counseling referred to two ways communication between Counselor-Client in helping client realize about his real problem and work together to find a solution for his own problem. So, cross-culture counseling is a process of counseling to which both Counselor-Clients is differing in their culture.
Due to the above headlines, there are a few different views regarding this issue. It is undoubted that professional counselor needs to have varies of skills to do counseling. It is because counselor needs to become competencies, professional and skill full to make they become successful counselor. Without good skills, counseling session does not mean anything. ). It has been suggested that the focus on cultural dissimilarities in multicultural counseling theory and practice serves to accentuate human differences and has the potential for fostering renewed forms of racism (Margolis & Rungta, 1986; Pedersen, 1983).
In my point of view, it is not a waste of time teach the trainee counselors cross-culture subject due to several reasons. The first is about the content of the cross-culture subject. In this subject, the trainee will be taught about theories, the frame work about cross-culture, and trainee will get the basic skills through a practical in their assignment(in order to apply the theory, trainee will be assigned with a few project which are related to the subtopic in a course outline provided). While the trainee is learning the cross-culture subject, they will need to do some research and have a clear understanding about cross-culture. Trainee counselor or even the counselor unmanageable to understand client framework if they do not a little culture background of they client, counselor can not express their empathy to the client, and client will think that counselor do not understand his problem, or even worst, client may think that the counselor does not want to counsel them. And client will come to the conclusion that, counseling can not help them in overcoming their problem. Multicultural counseling is a helping process that places his emphasis for counseling theory and practice equally on the cultural impressions of both the counselor and the client. ( Axelson, 1985).
The second reason is it is a hope to make trainee learn and have a clear picture about cross-culture and will help them to overcome when they get involved in their career future. Counseling professional must consider differences in language, social class, ad most importantly, culture between helper and client. These factors may be potential impediments o effective interventions, and counselors need to work to overcome the barriers such variables might produce in the helping process (Sue & Sue, 1990). In fact, in order to make the trainee counselor has a clear understanding about the multicultural counseling and they are required to gain knowledge about the history, experiences, and cultural values about diverse client groups. In many instances, pre-service and in-service training (trainee counselor) provide opportunities for counselors to develop a new level of awareness and an updated knowledge base to address the concerns of culturally diverse clients (Courtland C. Lee & Bernard L. Richardson, 1991).
The third reason is because, in order to become professional counselor, the counselor itself must be skilled full counselor. The promise of multicultural counseling is evident in the gradual emergence of a new type of helping professional-the culturally skilled counselor. Such and individuals has the awareness, knowledge, and skills to intervene successfully in the lives of clients from culturally diverse backgrounds (Sue, Bernier,Durran, Feinberg, Pedersen, Smith, & Vasquez-Nuttall,1982). A culturally skilled counseling professional is able to view each client as a unique individual while, at the same time, taking into consideration his r her common experiences as a human being (i.e., the developmental challenges that face all people), as well as the specific experiences that come from the client’s particular cultural background. Furthermore, the counselor must constantly be in touch with his or her own personal and cultural experiences as a unique human being who happens to be a helping professional (Lee, 1989a). So, we can conclude that, in mould a skillfully cross-culture counselor, the trainee should develop a basic skill and have a clear understanding about cross-culture or multi cultural background.
In a nutshell, skills only do not give a meaningful in cross-culture counseling but it also must come together personal awareness and cultural knowledge that can be obtained through the learning of cross-culture subject. The guidelines from a senior counselor, discipline, better understanding and depth knowledge will make the cross-culture counseling become successful and helpful to the clients.

References:
1) Courtland C. Lee & Bernard L. Richardson, Multicultural Issues In Counseling: New Approach to Diversity, American Counseling Association, 1991.
2) Stephen Palmer & Pittu Laungani, Counselling in a multicultural Society, SAGE Publication Inch., 1999.