Discussion Questions (General)

1. What are “the relationships that work” as demonstrated on the basis of the meta-analyses of psychotherapy research? What is the rele­vance of these findings for culturally oriented counseling?
2. How can the concept of “culture teachers” be incorporated into all counseling so as to make it more culturally sensitive and personally effective?
3. What is the role of empathy in culturally oriented counseling? What kinds of adaptations and mod­ifications, if any, may the expression and commu­nication of empathy require in the delivery of counseling services across cultures?
4. Are the experiential and evidence-based aspects of culturally oriented counseling necessarily in conflict? If they are not, how can they be recon­ciled and integrated?
5. Are Hofstede’s five dimensions relevant to multi­cultural counseling in the United States and Canada? What is their potential and what are their limitations?
6. What are the counseling implications of working with members of a culturally diverse clientele whose selves differ on the independent versus interdependent axis?
7. How can the goal of helping immigrants and sojourners adapt to U.S. culture be combined with the goal of helping them to preserve their cultural distinctiveness and  identity?