Running Head: CULTURE AND COUNSELLING

Knowledge of the Clients Culture and its Role in Counselling Sessions

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Knowledge of the Clients Culture and its Role in Counselling Sessions

Introduction
Demographic changes are taking place all over the world and it is safe to predict that in
the next few years, no society will boast of cultural or demographic uniformity, if there is any in
the world presently. In Europe and United Kingdom specifically, the influx of immigrants has
made the society more multicultural than it has ever been. Different professions have recognised
the demographic changes as significant aspects of professional development and dispensation of
duties. The emphasis on cultural competency during the hiring process, and the relevance
colleges are attaching to it, is manifest of a broader recognition that every field has to adapt its
services to multicultural and diverse clients. The same is true of counselling, a profession that
requires deep and intimate interaction between the client and counsellor. Laungani (1999, pp. 65)
recognised the essence of cultural competence in counselling and stated that a deep systematic
and objective knowledge of the culture of the client is extremely useful to the counsellor during

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counselling sessions. This paper will discuss Launganis assertion and demonstrate that
knowledge of culture of the client is crucial during the counselling sessions.
Culture and Counselling in Perspective
Any exploration of the value of understanding the clients culture and its usefulness to the
counsellor during the counselling session ideally would start with understanding culture and
counselling, and the relationship that exists between them. According to Vontress (2001), culture
is a peoples way of life. Culture passes from one generation to another, and entails aspects such
as what people eat, drink, think, and do in and with their lives. Culture is not a static construct.
Instead, it transforms under exertions from each generation, undergoes modifications, and
evolves with loss and gain of certain elements. The aspects of culture that resist change, or take
very long to change, include language, political organisation, and religion and spirituality.
Culture is a complex construct because if affects different people differently. However, the most
profound influence of culture is in the way it affects humans entire existence, counselling not an
exception.
Culture is a very broad area and exploring its place in counselling would be a stupendous
and painstaking task. The paper will therefore focus on religion as a cultural aspect and its place
in the counselling session. Religion and spirituality are closely related terms and counsellors
often use the two terms interchangeably. Despite their similarity however, the two constructs are
different with religion being a social level experience entailing organised belief system and
institutionalised set of values and belief in a deity (Brawer, et. al, 2002). Spirituality, on the other
hand, is an individual based experience that entails ones connection with others, attachment of
meaning, and internal sets of values (Laungani, 1999). The two concepts overlap to the extent
that separating them in an exploration such as this becomes an exercise in futility. The term
religiosity serves as the closest approximant to the collection of religion and spirituality.
Religion and Counselling

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The place of religiosity in counselling has not received the attention it merits despite its
prevalence. Whenever a discussion on including religiosity has arisen, stiff resistance rather than
careful reflection and exploration of the issue have followed. Practitioners and scholars in the
field of guidance and counselling, nonetheless, agree that religiosity has a legitimate place in
counselling. Both the counsellor and client have religiosity as among the most profound aspect
shaping their worldview and ignoring it would be defeatist and counterproductive. According to
(Haque, 2001, p. 250), a lack of an understanding of the clients religiosity hurts counselling
relationship and shuts the door to potentially pertinent intervention techniques ( It is a foregone
conclusion that a counsellor should have a systematic and deep understanding of the clients
religiosity for the reasons that the subsequent part of this paper will discuss.
Prevalence of Religion
Globally, religiosity is so prevalent that more than 8 out of 10 people associate
themselves with a certain religion. Even those without religion still affiliate themselves with
certain spirituality in terms of connection to others, compassion, and sense of empathy. In United
Kingdom and Australia for instance, more than 80% of the national population profess a certain
religion despite the two countries being secular states (Blando, 2006). Religion is so prevalent
that it has permeated all aspects of human existence including education and healthcare. Its
prevalence alone, however, should not be justification for its significance in counselling sessions.
If anything, the prevalence is a mere pointer that religiosity will always be present in all contexts
of life including counselling.
The interest of a counsellor, and the essence of a counselling session, is to get the best
outcome for the client. A nurse must therefore have a deep knowledge of ways in which
religiosity can affect counselling sessions. In a demographic as multicultural as United Kingdom
and the whole of Europe is, a lack of appreciation of the role religiosity plays in counselling
sessions would yield undesirable outcome for the client (Cook, Powell, & Sims, 2009). An astute

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counsellor should be able to recognise that religiosity plays a crucial role in counselling and thus
devise strategy to help him/her assist clients with diverse religiosity. Principally, the prevalence
of religion all over the client means that more time than not, a client will step into the
counselling session with certain religious beliefs and spirituality and inevitably, the two will have
an influence on the outcome of the session.
Religiosity and Diversity
With the ever-increasing diversity, members of a professional body must conduct
themselves and dispense duties in a manner than respect all clients regardless of sex, race, or
religion. Professionally codes of conduct, broadly, forbid discriminatory practices the grounds
notwithstanding. In United States, United Kingdom and Australia, professional code of conduct
for counsellors prohibit all forms of discriminatory practices (Lago, 2006). Turning down a client
based on human differences amounts to discrimination and may lead to professional and criminal
recrimination. The relevance that counselling schools have placed on training cultural
competence is evidence that a counsellor, because of the deep relationship and trust with the
client, must be sensitive to human differences during professional practice (Laungani, 1999).
Understanding the religiosity of the client is therefore an ethical and professional issue. A
counsellor with a systematic and deep knowledge of religiosity as a clients cultural aspect is
upholding diversity, high ethical standards, and best professional practice.
Principally, during the counselling session, a counsellor should be sensitive to the clients
religiosity as the basis for understanding the clients emotional and behavioural state. Religiosity
affects the emotions and behaviour of people and without a deep understanding of this cultural
aspect, it would be impossible to achieve the best possible outcome for the client. According to
(Faigin & Pargament, 2011), the most profound test for diversity in counselling is the degree of
consideration that a counsellor attaches to religiosity and its effect on the client and the
counsellor as well as counselling sessions.

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Religiosity and the Case for Holistic Counselling

Counselling is most effective when the approach in counselling sessions is holistic. A
holistic approach takes into consideration all relevant aspects that may contribute to the clients
predicament and best outcome. The holistic approach to counselling considers the emotional,
mental, and physical state of the client that may be relevant to contributing to the clients
situation because the same aspects are significant in bringing about a positive outcome.
Moreover, a counsellor considers the social, cultural, and spiritual aspects relevant to the client
situation. The most profound development in the field of counselling is the integration of all
these factors in counselling sessions (Blando, 2006). Without holistic approach, counselling may
fail to yield positive outcome hence the need for a counsellor to be culturally competent.
Lago (2006) makes the case for a holistic approach to counselling by making three
arguments, the first one being that the whole, rather than compartmentalisation, is the most
effective approach to achieving positive outcome with a client. In the past, the approach to
counselling was that a counsellor separated the different aspects within an individual and dealt
only with the psychological and emotional ones. Religiosity and counselling, for instance, were
issues that could not mix. Using the compartmentalisation approach, practitioners would advice a
client to see a priest/religious leader for spiritual/religious problems. The approach, however,
became unpopular with the realisation that a connection exists among distinct and separate
aspects of an individual. The appreciation and application of the holistic approach was a sensible
reaction to the fact that a human being has different spheres that interact to produce a certain
outcome. On religiosity for instance, research shows that belief in God or any other deity has a
profound effect on ones sense of self-esteem (Faigin & Pargament, 2011). It is a recognisable
fact that self-esteem affects depression, a condition that ranks among the most common in

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counselling sessions. Research also shows that people with religiosity are more likely to
experience positive outcomes from a counselling session than those without religiosity.
The second justification for the holistic approach especially as it relates to religiosity and
counselling session is the fact that spiritual and religious issues are pertinent to the things that go
on during the counselling session. If a client is suffering from depression resulting from
bereavement for instance, the belief in life after death, a common theme in religion, may
influence the outcome of the counselling session. A study among 33 bereaved students found that
more than half of them believed that religion helped them cope with the death of loved ones
(Lago, 2006). If the client has suffered hurt by another person, the theme of forgiveness, a
concept of religion again, may play a large part in the outcome of a counselling session.
The primacy of religion in peoples life means that a counsellor can only ignore it to the
peril of the clients outcome. An astute counsellor understands that in the midst of
insurmountable odds, religion plays a big role in reassuring people that tomorrow would be
better. Without religion, people would have little other to hope for especially in the face of great
adversity. The place of religion in counselling has received the attention of secular counsellors
with themes such as forgiveness forming a crucial pillar of counselling sessions (Lago, 2006). An
astute counsellor should have as much knowledge of the clients cultural background and
religiosity as possible to be able to know how to engage them. Without this knowledge,
achieving positive outcome with the client may be difficult because essentially, the possibility of
a positive or negative feedback is dependent on the clients ability to forgive and let go the past
and embrace the future with hope and optimism.
The third justification for a holistic approach, and which still elicits controversy among
scholars and practitioners, is the fact that religiosity influences mental and emotional well-being
as well as the behaviour of an individual. A counsellor needs an acute knowledge of the clients
religiosity so that he/she may be in a position to judge factors that may facilitate or hinder the

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counselling sessions. A study on happiness index in Europe established that religious people are
generally happier than those who do not profess any religion (Vontress, 2001). The study also
found out that religious people tend to be mentally and emotionally healthier than non-religious
people are. Within the context of religion, one can either be intrinsically or extrinsically
orientated towards a particular religion. Intrinsically oriented religion is one in which those who
profess and practice it believe in religion as a central pillar of the lives and they live and do
everything around it. Extrinsically oriented people do not view religion as an end in itself but a
means to an end. Research has found that people who live with religion as an end rather than
means have better mental, emotional, and behavioural health than those who live with religion as
a means to an end. Extrinsically oriented people record behavioural, emotional, and mental
health issues. The mental health indices, a measure of an individuals likelihood to suffer
conditions that may necessitate counselling or other psychological interventions, rates religious
people as generally less likely to suffer mental health issues.
In the recent past, the body of evidence in favour of the argument that religiosity leads to
better mental health has increased with erstwhile ardent opponents of the argument like Albert
Ellis crossing to the opposite side of the debate (Faigin & Pargament, 2011). Generally, religious
people suffer less depression and anxiety than people who are not religious. Strict religious
background has produced people who are more likely to experience depression and anxiety
compared to upbringings that religion is not a central theme. The view of God particularly,
scholars have found that people who view God as embodiment of virtues such as love, charity,
and support are likely to avoid mental health issues and are generally easy to counsel in case they
develop depression, anxiety, or any other condition that requires counselling interventions. On
the contrary, people who view God in negative perspective have little prospect of positive

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outcome after a counselling session because they do not have something to hope for or a
powerful deity to rely on for warmth, care, and support.
A competent counsellor should have systematic knowledge of the clients religiosity
during the counselling session to be able to know what approaches to use and how to cope with
emerging issues during the counselling process. For a deeply religiosity person, the possibility of
positive outcome are far greater and the counsellor should take advantage of the religiosity to
walk with the client towards overcoming the condition (Cook, Powell, & Sims, 2009). For a
client that lacks religiosity, the counsellor should have the right strategies to lead the client to
positive outcome. If the client does not believe in forgiveness as a religious tenet for instance, the
counsellor could lead the client to the belief that forgiveness does more good to the giver than the
receiver. The religiosity of the client notwithstanding, the counsellor should have extensive
knowledge of religion as a cultural aspect in order to know what strategies to use with the client
to boast chances of a positive outcome.
While being an important contributor to positive outcome in a counselling session,
religion can have negative consequences on the client hence the need for deep and systematic
knowledge on the clients side (Faigin & Pargament, 2011). Some religious groups have
practices that may be detrimental to the mental health of the client. When a client is so deep into
religion, often, it is impossible for them to make rational decisions. Faith, for instance, may bring
positive outcome when a client believes that God or a deity is in charge and through his support
and care, everything will be all right. However, faith may also be wilful ignorance and impede
the client from seeing obvious facts. Some of the religious practices that may undermine
counselling sessions are belonging to a cult. Most cults have toxic practices that may not only
bring about negative mental health but also impede positive outcomes during the counselling
process. The cult movement Peoples Temple under Jim Jones is a classic example of how cults

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lead to mental deterioration. In Africa, Joseph Kibweteeres Movement for the Restoration of the
Ten Commandments of God provides a good example of the extent to which cults could lead to
negative mental issues and impede counselling process.
An astute counsellor should have a deep knowledge of the clients religiosity to discern
whether the practice of the religion is a contributor to the mental health and if it will impede or
facilitate positive outcomes from the counselling session. While some religions promote the
prospects of a positive outcome from a counselling session, cults undermine the possibilities.
Faigin and Pargament (2011) cite examples of cults that abuse children; exorcise evil spirits
through harmful means, and even executing members as examples of religiosity hurting the
cause of counselling. The examples on the good and bad of religiosity accentuate the argument
that a counsellor should have a deep and systematic knowledge of the clients culture and this
case specifically, religiosity.
The most persistent argument against understanding the clients culture as an important
aspect in counselling sessions emanates from scholars and practitioners who believe that
counselling should be value-free (Cook, Powell, & Sims, 2009). To such scholars and
practitioners, counselling should unfold independent of the counsellors values and beliefs.
Researchers have proved that the idea of value-free counselling is a myth because execution of
professional duties is essentially implementing what one believes in terms of philosophical
model and techniques. A counsellor comes into the counselling session with his/her own set of
values and beliefs including religiosity and meets a client with equally the same attributes. This
paper has demonstrated that the counsellor needs to have a deep understanding of the clients
culture, particularly religiosity because of religiositys prevalence, diversity issues and ethical
concerns, the case for a holistic approach to counselling, and the fact that counselling is valuebased.
References

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Brawer, P. A., Handal, P. J., Fabricatore, A. N., Roberts, R., & Wajda-Johnston, V. A. (2002).
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programs. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 33, 203-206.
Cook, C., Powell, A., & Sims, A. (2009). Spirituality and Psychiatry. London: Gaskell.
Faigin, C., & Pargament, K. I. (2011). Strengthened by the Spirit: Religion, Spirituality, and
Resilience Through Adulthood and Aging. Resilience In Aging, 163. doi:10.1007/978-14419-0232-0_11.
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Lago, C. (2006). Race, culture, and counselling: The ongoing challenge. New York: Open
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Laungani, P. (1999). Counselling in a multicultural society. London: Sage Pubications.
Vontress, C. E. (2001). Cross-cultural counselling in the 21st century. International Journal for
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