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Perceptions of Intercultural Social Challenges: Towards Culturally Competent Counselling Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2015

Anita S. Mak*
Affiliation:
Centre for Applied Psychology, University of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Tamara L. Shaw
Affiliation:
Centre for Applied Psychology, University of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
*
address for correspondence: Dr Anita S. Mak, Professor of Psychology, Faculty of Health, University of Canberra, PO Box 1, ACT 2601, Australia. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Increasing ethnic and cultural diversity worldwide and especially in Australia requires that psychologists and counsellors cultivate the knowhow to interact and work effectively with clients and stakeholders in cross-cultural contexts. This study aimed to identify and compare themes regarding challenging intercultural social scenarios experienced by supervising, practising and intern psychologists. Transcripts from five focus groups were open-coded on four occasions and the final themes compared with the EXCELL (Excellence in Cultural Experiential Learning and Leadership) program's six key sociocultural competencies (Mak, Westwood, Barker, & Ishiyama, 1998). We found that many challenges reported by psychologists (regardless of their qualifications) were related to difficulties — for psychologists and clients — in executing one or more of key sociocultural competencies: seeking help or information, participating in a group, making social contact, giving feedback, refusing a request, and expressing disagreement. We also identified barriers to cultural competence in therapeutic relationships, including cultural identity issues, needing to address difficulties in intimate relationships, cultural variation in values/beliefs/social norms, mismatched expectations, psychologists’ perceived deficit in intercultural training, and challenges in self-reflection. Based on our findings, we propose a model of culturally competent counselling practice and discuss implications for counsellor and psychologist training, and for future research.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2015 

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