ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how a counsellor understands and use of the terms culture, ‘race’ and ethnicity may influence and affect the counselling process. Racism as an entity surfacing in counselling and psychotherapy has historically been referred to by a more clinically sanitized term: that of xenophobia, which has been defined by A. S. Reber as a ‘pathological fear of strangers or strange places’. Despite differences in culture between white therapists and Black clients, counselling theorists have tended to ignore the basic cultural differences underlying the psychological needs of Black people. Culture was said to involve the total fabric of a person’s life and provide security through structured ways of mastering the environment. An emic orientation focuses on the unique aspects of the culture under study. Homey, an eminent psychodynamic theorist also recognized the relationship of culture and ethnic identity to healthy functioning and maintained that there was an overriding need for therapists to consider the cultural background of their clients.
