Paul Pedersen

Counseling International Students

The tendency to either overemphasize or underemphasize differences when counseling international students is documented in research literature. However, there has been little systematic research and still fewer comprehensive theories about counseling international students. The numerous theories available tend to either emphasize the importance of changing the student or person in an adjustment mode, or changing the situation in a more behaviorist mode. Critical incidents collected while counseling international students at the University of Minnesota demonstrate the typical problems encountered and suggest approaches to manage those problems. The critical incidents and responses suggest that informal methods and informal counseling contexts become especially important in counseling international students. Other practical suggestions and tools are discussed to aid those who provide counseling to international students. A list of topics for future research is also presented.

Internationalizing the counseling psychology curriculum: toward new values, competencies, and directions

The changing world in which we now live requires that counseling psychology alter its training curriculum assumptions, content, and methods to prepare students and faculty for meeting the challenges of life in the global community. Global problems such as poverty, migration, overpopulation, international war and violence, rapid urbanization, and cultural disintegration are posing new challenges for service professions that are no longer suited to ethnocentric values, content, and interventions. Adjustment syndromes such as alienation, culture shock, acculturation, identity conflict and confusion, and migration stress are now emerging as major problems for counselors in schools, colleges, industry, clinics and private practice. New competencies are needed. The present article offers 50 different ways to assist in the internationalization of the counseling curriculum, with specific recommendations for professional psychological associations and department of psychology curriculum content and extra-curricular activities, and universities. The article calls upon counseling psychologists around the world to help create a new professional and global consciousness that can advance our field by addressing the problems we face and restoring dignity to those we serve through the provision of more informed and culturally sensitive services.

Culturally Biased Assumptions in Counseling Psychology

Eight clusters of culturally biased assumptions are identified for further discussion from Leong and Ponterottos (2003 [this issue]) article. The presence of cultural bias demonstrates that cultural bias is so robust and pervasive that is permeates the profession of counseling psychology, even including those articles that effectively attack cultural bias itself such as Leong and Ponterottos. Readers are warned to not underestimate the power of cultural bias and cultural encapsulation as generic issues in the profession of counseling psychology. The internationalization of counseling psychology is a struggle to be consistent with the scientist-practitioner model and the scientific foundation of psychology itself.

DEVELOPING MULTICULTURAL ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHOLOGY

While psychologists have recognized the importance of cultural differences in many areas, multicultural ethical guidelines for psychology are still lacking. This article will review some of the controversial issues that cultural differences raise and discuss literature published on multicultural ethics. The existing American Psychological Association Ethical Principles will be reviewed with suggestions for specific changes to meet the needs of a multicultural society.

THE TRANSFER OF INTERCULTURAL TRAINING SKILLS

Abstract The trainer going to another culture is confronted with a complexity of environmental variables which will determine the success or failure of training. A balance of cultural variables mediate the success of training at several levels. First, there is the effect of difference in cultural background and perception that separates the trainer and participants from one another. The se differences in socialization and value priorities will determine both the appropriate method and content of any training or consultation before any transfer of awareness or knowledge or skill can occur.

Recent trends in cultural theories

Abstract Multiculturalism is probably the most important and most misunderstood psychological construct of this decade. This article identifies specific and uniquely valuable contributions of a multicultural perspective and demonstrates the importance of multicultural awareness training as a primary prevention strategy, directed toward preventing multicultural misunderstandings before they happen by training mental health providers to become more aware of their culturally learned assumptions and the contrasting cultural contexts of their clients. The development of recent multicultural theories will be reviewed to demonstrate how the definition of cultural theories have changed over time toward a broader and more complicated perspective. Finally practical applications of culture-centered theories will be reviewed through the presentation of a Cultural Grid for separating behaviors from expectations in each cultural context.

Mediating multicultural conflict by separating behaviors from expectations in a cultural grid

Abstract Culturally different approaches to mediation are presented and compared within the context of an inclusive definition of culture. An Intrapersonal Grid is presented to identify how an accurate assessment of behaviors depends on identification of matching expectations and values which are learned in a sociocultural context. The danger of misattribution in identifying expectations accurately is discussed in relation to an Interpersonal Grid that separates behaviors from expectations. Multicultural mediation can best be accomplished by identifying “common ground” of shared positive expectations and not being distracted by “undesirable” behaviors. Case illustrations are provided.

Inclusive cultural empathy : a relationship-centred alternative to individualism

Good relationships in psychotherapy emerge as a necessary but not sufficient condition in all research about effective mental health services. Good relationships depend on establishing empathy. Empathy occurs when one person vicariously experiences the feelings, perceptions and thoughts of another. Most of the research on empathy predicates the shared understanding of emotions, thoughts and actions of one person by another. In western cultures this is typically done by focusing exclusively on the individual while in traditional non-western cultures empathy more typically involves an inclusive perspective focusing on the individual and significant others in the societal context. I explore the reframing of “empathy” based on an individualistic perspective, into “inclusive cultural empathy” based on a more relationship-centred perspective as an alternative interpretation of the empathic process.

Culture-Centered Counseling Skills as a Preventive Strategy for College Health Services.

All learning occurs in a cultural context. Successful counseling can be achieved by training healthcare providers to interpret behaviors in their cultural context. The author describes a culture-centered approach, using a cultural grid that matches same/different behaviors with same/different expectations. Clients with shared positive expectations may display dissonant and apparently negative behaviors. Culturally accurate knowledge and culturally appropriate skills provide a three-level developmental sequence for more accurate and more appropriate healthcare guidance in such multicultural settings as those met on the college campus.

The cultural grid: A complicated and dynamic approach to multicultural counseling

Abstract The cultural grid differentiates between personal and cultural elements of a multicultural situation. It combines the social system variables of ethnographic, demographic, status, and affiliation with personal cognitive variables of behavior, expectation and value. The resulting personal cultural orientation will display the complicated range of dynamic and salient cultures in a persons background which influence behaviors, expectations and values at an intrapersonal level. The grid also differentiates between personal (different expectation but same behavior) and cultural (same expectation but different behavior) interactions on an interpersonal level.