ABSTRACT
The central thesis o f this article is that focusing on cross-cultural competence will enhance both the science and the practice o f counseling psychology . Developing crosscultural competence is a lifelong journey, replete with many jo ys and challenges, that will (a) increase the sophistication o f our research, (b) expand the utility and gene ralizobility o f the knowledge bases in counseling psychology, (c) promote a deeper realization that counseling occurs in a cultural context, and (d) increase not only counseling effective ness but also the profession’s ability to address diverse mental health needs across dif feren t populations around the globe. In the future, (a) counseling psychologists w ill be expected to have an array o f cross-cultural competencies, which emphasizes the need to system atically train students to acquire such competencies, and (b) counseling p sy chology w ill no longer be defined as counseling psychology within the United States, but rather, the param eters o f counseling psychology will cross many countries and many cultures.
