89- Incorporate the indigenous healing practices of the patient’s culture when
possible. - Become knowledgeable about patients’ historical and sociopolitical back-
ground and be sensitive to oppression, discrimination, and racism encountered
by many. - Be knowledgeable about acculturation issues for patients who have moved from
one place to another. - Facilitate empowerment for patients who feel under-advantaged and undervalued.
Ridley and Udipi ( 2002 ) provide several recommendations regarding cultural
empathy, including asking patients whether your perceptions are correct, never pre-
tending to understand, taking time to consider patients’ comments and to formulate
a response instead of responding immediately to what they said, respecting a
patient’s need for silence to digest what is being discussed, and engaging in self-
reflection about one’s own cultural assumptions and stereotypes. Specific to empa-
thy, the authors recommend that “...counselors should not assume that clients of
other cultures place the same importance on empathy as do members of the coun-
selors’ own cultures. Instead, they should try to determine their clients’ attitudes
towards empathy and how empathy is expressed in the clients’ cultures” (p. 327).
Williams and Abeles ( 2004 ) provide an excellent example of cultural empathy in
their article on counseling individuals from the Deaf community. They note that
similar to other minorities, members of the Deaf community experience effects of
oppression such as “a greater incidence of substance abuse, unemployment or
underemployment, isolation/segregation from others, and distrust of members of
the mainstream society (Glickman 1996 ). The fact that Deaf individuals do not
communicate using the dominant language of the society may further isolate them
from their parents and other family members (Harvey 1982 )” (p. 643). They further
note “More than 90% of Deaf children are born to hearing parents who have little or
no previous experience with deafness and are not able to provide a language model
for their children (Schirmer 2001 ). Without effective language interactions, Deaf
individuals may have limited ability to express themselves with others and may also
struggle to label their own experiences, thoughts, and feelings (Corker 1996 ; Pollard
1998 )” (p. 643). The language barrier poses a major challenge. “Deaf clients may
wait for the therapist to prompt conversation and may provide short, simple
responses that lack richness and content (Hoyt et al. 1981 ; Pollard 1998 )” (p. 644).
The authors note the importance of self-awareness of how one feels about working
with Deaf individuals, including the therapist’s cultural assumptions and feelings of
competence (or lack thereof) in counseling Deaf individuals.
Browner et al. ( 2003 ) interviewed pregnant Mexican-American women who
screened positive for possible birth defects to explore the extent to which miscom-
munication with their genetic counselor affected their decision to pursue or decline
amniocentesis. Among their results they found “clients who do not feel that their
views have been listened to and respected, are less likely to listen to and respect the
counselor’s guidance” (p. 1945).
Barlow-Stewart et al. ( 2006 ) conducted a study illustrating the importance of
cultural empathy. They studied Chinese-Australians’ beliefs about inheritance and
4.7 Cultural Empathy