Ivey adds to these, in 1997, a few methodological principles of multicultural counselling
(Zakár et al, 1004):
- integrating elements of general counselling approaches under the form of
meta-theories; - taking into account the individual differences between client and counsellor;
- describing clients’ cultural identity by their attitude towards training,
profession, society, and the others; - adapting the methods to real life and the client’s system of values;
- developing measures to meet negative models promoted in the family and
minority group.
In the context of multicultural counselling it is attempted to endow clients with the
following values and norms (Zakár et al, 2004, apud Katz, 1985): responsibility,
independence, autonomy, active and proactive attitude, open communication, availability
and commitment to improving one’s own behaviour, objectivity, neutrality, rationality,
time management.
Multicultural competences of counsellors
Aside from the clearly multicultural situations involving work with minorities or
immigrants, any counselling situation has a multicultural facet, since as Launikari and
Puukari (2005) show, “counsellors must be aware that all clients bring to the counselling
and guidance process their entire unique personal history and culture (gender, social
class, belief, language, etc)”. It is unavoidable to select career-counselling theories
carefully in order to identify the culturally biased ones that do not allow the adequate
identification of clients from different cultural environments.
On the other hand, as Seeley points out, multicultural counselling requires not so much
knowledge on other cultures, as “an understanding of the complex processes of
socialization and construction of world vision, attitudes, values, and norms of a person”
(2000, apud Launikari and Puukari, 2005).
Sue (1996) distinguishes between three categories of multicultural competences
pertaining to counsellors (apud Launikari and Puukari, 2005): awareness of their own
perspectives, values and preferences; understanding the world view of clients who are
culturally different, the ability to develop adequate strategies and techniques for
intervention.
Intercultural communication
Intercultural communication represents the process where those who interact “mutually
create, propose, and accept “codes” adequate to the contents, with which they will operate