Multi-cultural Counseling is made up of six fundamental concepts. These include culture, cultural differences, cross-cultural, human diversity, culturally diverse backgrounds, and globally diverse. Culture can be defined in various ways, ethnographically being ethnicity, nationality, religion, and language. Demographically, culture involves age, gender, place of residence, etc (Newsome 2014). An example of cultural differences would be whether an individual identifies themselves according to physical characteristics shared, or if shared history or beliefs are shared between various individuals. For example, an African American female can identify herself as following traditional Jewish beliefs. All counseling can be considered cross-cultural, and the term “multi-cultural” has various interpretations. Rage, ethnicity, gender, etc are all differences taken into consideration when dealing with multi-cultural counseling (Newsome 2014). Since everyone is unique in their own special way when it comes to cultural experiences, multi-cultural counseling used the etic and emic approach. Etic principle emphasizes qualities at a universal standpoint, that are culturally generalized. Emic, on the other hand, focuses on characteristics of each individual cultural group and is more specific, personal and in-depth. Both approaches have been criticized and not either is more efficient than the other, but the most effective approach has been combining both approaches and focusing on universal and specific cultural characteristics (Newsome 2014). In order to succeed in the field of multi-cultural counseling, one must be open to working with individuals who come from various cultural backgrounds, especially those different from their own. Discrimination is looked down upon in the counseling field, and everyones perspective and beliefs must be acknowledged in order to better understand the differences. No specific theory is valid for every cultural perspective, so being open to differences is crucial.
References:
Newsome, D.W. & Gladding, S. T. (2014). Clinical mental health counseling in community and agency settings