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Content: Cultural self-awareness refers to the counselor’s awareness and acknowledgment of his or her own cultural beliefs, attitudes, and values as well as an awareness of his or her biases and faulty assumptions about other groups. Essentially, a counselor with a heightened sense of cultural self-awareness acknowledges and recognizes when his or her culture is contradictory to a client’s culture. When a counselor does not recognize that he or she has biased views and stereotypical beliefs about other groups, he or she will likely provide ineffective counseling services and experience high rates of client dropout. Also, a culturally aware counselor is able to recognize when he or she is conceptualizing a client’s case based on prejudiced and/or stereotypical beliefs about a particular group of people. Lack of Counselor Cultural Knowledge
In many cases, the counselor’s lack of cultural knowledge can serve as a barrier to effective cross-cultural counseling. Cultural knowledge includes the counselor’s understanding and knowledge of other cultural groups’ behaviors, norms, beliefs, and attitudes. Both counselors and clients bring to counseling a set of cultural norms that have been reinforced for long periods of time. These norms then influence the way in which the counselor and client perceive their world, each other, and their approach to counseling. Counselors who are knowledgeable of their clients’ cultural preferences and norms are better equipped to make appropriate clinical decisions. For example, in some cultures, passivity rather than assertiveness is revered.