Multicultural Counseling Essay

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Multicultural Counseling Coretta Casley Webster University Multicultural Counseling The growing divergences as well as collaboration between peoples of different cultures, race and ethnicities, and the varying needs of such people based upon their cultural tendencies makes it important for counselors to gain an understanding and show respect towards people from different racial, ethnic, gender and sexual orientation. Cultural diversity is a phenomenon that has become an important element of human development and one of the defining features of life in the 21st century is the belief that as people interact across boundaries and borders become more fluid, an acknowledgement of the uniqueness of cultures will be an important part of all fields of life. Multicultural counseling or the idea of cultural diversity and its importance to the field of counseling can be understood from the fact that it is being considered as a fourth force of the counseling theory. Traditionally, the realm of counseling has encompassed “psychodynamic, humanistic/existential and behavioral counseling theories and methods" (LeBeauf, Smaby, Maddux, 2009, p. 34)) and in keeping with human development, multicultural counseling is increasingly being seen as an integral part of the counseling process. As an approach towards counseling, it is especially effective because it calls upon the counselor to understand the client and his or her problems based upon cultural beliefs. The counseling field provides one of the most important services to society in terms of its ability to help individuals suffering from psychological and mental disorders to confront their problems and seek effective intervention so that they may go on with their daily lives without untoward consequences. The increase in people from different races, culture and
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