Ethics in Intercultural Therapeutic Dialogues (original) (raw)

In counselling and psychology, scholars have pointed out the need for clinicians to develop cultural sensitivity and awareness for their work with clients (e.g., Arthur & Collins, 2010; Daniel, 2012; Rober, 2012). The multicultural movement in counselling has importantly highlighted how non-dominant cultural groups were misrepresented by psychology researchers and practitioners in the past, and invited counsellors to develop cultural awareness in their work with clients (e.g., Arthur & Collins, 2010). In this chapter, we invite readers to take another step forward and explore with us how clients and counsellors can get beyond taken for granted cultural stereotypes. We invite counsellors to better recognize the relevance of cultural identities and practices (including their own), especially for how tensions arising from cultural differences are generated, maintained, and dealt with in relationships. In particular, we are interested in how counsellors can facilitate clients’ preferred cultural ways of being that may otherwise remain invisible. In this chapter, we focus on how therapists can stay ethically attuned to clients’ cultural ways of being and relating through how they respond to clients’ linguistic and nonverbal responses to them. We will first briefly review how intercultural dialogue has been historically understood in psychology, and then share how it is understood from our social constructionist standpoint. We discuss how social constructionist understandings and related conversational practices can help therapists ethically engage clients in culturally inclusive and responsive ways, in line with Principle I of the Code (CPA, 2000). Next, we show clinical examples of how cultural differences are worked out in counselling conversations through the words and ways of talking used by counsellors in intercultural dialogues with clients. Finally, we offer reflective questions that may be helpful to enhancing how cultural differences are recognized and negotiated in intercultural dialogues. 1. Sametband, I., Strong, T., & Dada, G. (in press). Ethics in Intercultural Dialogue. In M.A. Bisson & Roughley, R. (Eds.). Counselling Ethics from the Margins. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association. Ines Sametband - first Author