Topic: “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.”
From: Nor Hanani Binti Ahmad Tajudin (0727412)

Before we go further trough this topic, allow me to give you the definition of ‘Culture’. The term culture encompasses the values, beliefs, and behaviors shared by a group of people. But culture does not delineate an ethnic or racial heritage. It also can refer to groups identified by age, gender, sexual identity, religion, or economic status. While when we talk about cross-cultural, for me in my opinion, it is different perspectives, different ideas or interpretations on some risen issues. In fact, we may also have several of acceptance, judgmental or interpretations in only single issue. These interpretations will cross each other and causes misunderstand among us or argument as even worst as to stand up for our own ideas. For me, here come the importances of teaching cross-cultural counseling. This subject teaches us as future counselors to be well prepared when we are in the real world of counseling.
Personally, when I look at this topic, I don’t agree with it. This is because counselor is a professional occupation. We have to deal with people from various races, cultures, religion and so on. Who ever come to us, as our client we have to accept and welcoming them as whom there are and with unconditional positive regards. The sense of unconditional positive regards is included as one of the four major elements that a counselor should practice as well as the empathy, genuineness and congruence. This will definitely make me said that teaching Cross-Cultural Counseling subject to trainee counselors does not a waste of time. Instead, this subject should be emphasis as an important subject in preparing and producing a good counselor. Nevertheless, we should not merely focus on equipping the trainee with the skills and competencies in order for being good counselors. Although the counselor have high skills in doing counseling session like listening, paraphrasing, self-disclosure and so on but yet when client came whom a different races from us, then we have to be competence to deal with them.
As we truly already know, every country in this world has their citizens with different races, beliefs, and religion. In Malaysia, we have 3 major races such as Malay, Chinese and Indians. Besides these 3 major races, there are also minor ethnicities that I am not able to mention them all. Some of them are Orang Asli, Kadazan, Serani, Bidayuh, Dayak, Dusun and many other more. That means in order to be a good counselor; we must prepare ourselves with awareness of others races or ethnicities’ sensitivities. Culture will influence the behavior of both of the counselor and the client with or without our awareness. Increasing our awareness of our own cultural values and personal assumptions will help us as a counselor to work sensitively with culturally diverse clients. We need knowledge and skills that will enable us to work effectively with a diverse membership.
For example in school, as a school’s counselor, if there are a students who came from non-Muslim races and have a family problems whom his/her father is an alcoholic and yet like to hits his family, so how will the Muslim counselor should react. In Islam, alcohol or ‘arak’ is definitely prohibited but in other religion, they are not prohibited to drink it but only stated as not encouraging. Now, this is the objective why is this Cross-Cultural Counseling’s subject being teaches to the trainee. To be able to handle or deal with clients from different races, religions, beliefs, cultural, customs and many more.
In conclusion, I can say that I totally disagree with teaching Cross-Cultural Counseling to the trainee counselor is a waste of time. Oppositely, teaching this subject to the counselor to be will contribute a lot of benefits to us. This will make us to be well prepared to face the reality world of counseling when we graduate from college and become a real counselor.
Insyaallah….thanks a lot