ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the area of cross-cultural counselling. It introduces the issues of counselling technique, practice and theory, empathy and rapport, the impact of racism and therapist attitude, transference and counter-transference, as well as the significance of language and cultural differences between white counsellor and Black client. The goals of therapy are presumably to support clients, to enable them to review any negative assessments of themselves and facilitate the understanding of their uniqueness, worth, and to help them identify hidden strengths for challenging and coping with both internal and external pressure. Rogers believed that counter-transference did not tend to develop in properly controlled client centred therapy with the counsellor. The effect of counter-transference in a counselling relationship when counsellor and client are from differing cultural backgrounds may be particularly destructive if counsellors were unwilling or unable to examine their cultural prejudice and racism.
