Culture-centered counseling: Awareness knowledge and interventions among Filipino counselors

• Main Author: Menezes, Anthony
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2008
• Subjects: Counselors > Philippines; Student counselors; Guidance counselors; Counselor education; Counseling
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/184; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_doctoral/article/1183/viewcontent/CDTG004393_P.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study done against the backdrop of the multicultural movement in psychology, focused on the awareness, knowledge and intervention competencies of counselors and explored how these competencies might reflect culture centered counseling. The participants chosen through a criterion based sampling procedure were 10 professional Filipino counselors with a graduate degree in counseling. Qualitative data was collected through vignette questionnaires and interviews, and was analyzed using the Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) method. Quantitative data collected through a fixed response survey and a self-rating scale was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Findings indicated that culture centered counseling is an approach to counseling where counselors in their awareness knowledge and interventions considered the social context (family relationships, common practices, traditions) as it affected both them and their clients. Awareness, characterized by recognition of own prejudices with attempts to cultivate a non-judgmental stance towards clients appeared to be the strongest culture centered competency followed by interventions typified by targeting external circumstances like family and societal obligations. In the knowledge competency, counselors felt they dont have enough information on the subject and felt the need for organized knowledge on culture centered counseling. The Multicultural Awareness Knowledge and Skills Survey (MAKSS) provided supportive evidence to the qualitative data showing an overall good multicultural competency of the participants, and a good competency in the subscales of awareness and interventions, and limited competency in knowledge. The findings of the study have implications for the development of counseling theory and the delivery of counseling services.