Culture Influence on My Counseling

One of the cultural values that might influence my role as counselor while dealing with a client who shares a different culture is my belief in my religion and its values. Dealing with a client who might tend to dispute my religious values taking for instance Protestants or Muslims who attach different beliefs and respects to the Virgin Mary might cause me to feel that the client does not respect my religious beliefs and values.

The remedy or adjustment that I might have to adopt is to keep the therapy session professional. I would try as much as possible to avoid getting personal or involving our religious differences in our conversation and make the client realize that religion is a personal thing since it involves one adopting a personal relationship with his or her God and the beliefs and values that the religion identifies with.  

Another cultural value that might influence my role as a counselor is my strong belief in the family as the central pillar of the social structure. Counseling a person from a cultural background that does not put much value on the family for instance a man who has neglected his family and does not seem to care may affect my tolerance towards him. The remedy or adjustments that I might have to make is to understand that though people are equal they might never be the same. Some hold very different values from the ones that we consider important and therefore we should take this into consideration and approach them without any prejudices or personal judgments.