Question

Explain how a counselor’s cultural and spiritual beliefs can affect their worldview and response to the therapeutic process.

Answer 1

In the counseling profession, there can be an effect of a counselor's personal cultural and spiritual beliefs on the therapeutic process.

Culture will provide a stringent set of beliefs, ideas, and values that a counselor might follow. This affects daily consciousness, thinking patterns, and behaviors. The counselor will behave in a certain and his/her perspective to look upon the client with be very narrow. This can have a further negative effect where the plea of the client is never understood or comprehended. The main impact of counseling will become distorted. A counselor will become culturally biased rather than culturally fair. For instance, If a male counselor comes from a patriarchal culture where women are strictly asked to remain at home then this core belief will affect the counseling process of a woman client who is highlighting stress about her corporate job. The therapist here will look down upon the women and might suggest her doing household work.

Spiritual beliefs are more about internal healing and religious existential feelings and thoughts. These beliefs and feelings go beyond rational and logical perspectives. Counseling is a more scientific and rational approach. A counselor might try to put forward the personal spiritual ideas of healing towards the client. These spiritual approaches are not empirically validated and might hinder the healing or intervention of the client. For instance, A depressed client is advised by a counselor that he should pray to god. Praying to the god might not benefit the client and he will end up becoming more hopeless.