Beginning to emerge in the late 1800s in response to the Industrial Revolution and social reform movements, the profession of counseling has been developing as a field for less than 200 years. In 1866, Sigmund Freud began developing and practicing Psychoanalysis in Austria and in 1913, the first mental health clinic in the United States was opened. Throughout the next century, counseling took off around the world. Today it is a relatively well-known and accepted field, and millions have sought treatment and guidance from a variety of trained counselors.
But one thing is for sure, counseling inherently cannot work with a one-size-fits-all approach. Counselors are trained in different approaches, techniques, and schools of thought that generally best serve the cultures they stem from. As the world globalizes, counselors inevitably begin to see clients from diverse backgrounds there is cultural dissimilitude that must be accounted for.
So how does a counselor serve a diverse clientele?
How does one step outside of their perception and cultural leanings to meet a client in a space that accounts for and honors their culture and heart language? As our world continues to connect, processes and practices that are normal in one culture begin to make their way to other parts of the world. However, when these practices become adopted without first being adapted, challenges can set in.
A gifted Intercultural Agility Practitioner and long-time counselor Nancy Wolf began to face challenges as she began to counsel people from backgrounds different from her own, and she discovered a solution that revolutionized her client work. Through Intercultural Agility, she found a deeper conviction that her expectations of how counseling will go – including productive methodology and resolution – are not always the best outcome. Take restoration for example. It looks different in every culture and a counselor is going to favor the narrative for forgiveness, apologies, and reconciliation based on the worldview they were trained in. When Nancy’s mindset was broadened from her IA training and she began counseling with the awareness of her preferences toward her own cultural norms, she became more curious, asked better questions, and made more of a cognizant effort not to make assumptions. This allowed her to connect more deeply with her counselees and, in turn, make them feel more seen and understood by her.
Counseling takes a client on a journey where a counselor acts as a facilitator and guide for the counselee to discover, learn, uncover, and heal.
A counselor needs to be able to flex past their convictions about what peace, healing, and mental health look like to best serve their clients. Intercultural Agility offers a counselor rich and valuable tools to understand their own self-culture and teaches how to create a space where all individuals are free to exist in a state that feels safe and natural to them.
Nancy’s one wish for all counselors, whether they are offering their services in a culture that is familiar to them or somewhere far from home, is that they would grow in their cultural understanding through the IA certification.
She was trained to be a counselor in a country with vast resources that are not accessible in all parts of the world. She hopes that, as counselors learn more about counseling interculturally, they can model that for others in countries without the same access to information and training.
This article was adapted from our podcast episode Counseling Across Cultures with Nancy Wolf.
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