1. How our pluralistic society is bringing the need for change in our counselling models.

2. What does a Pluralistic Society mean?
Pluralistic societies are those that contain a diverse group of religious cultures and traditions. Pluralistic societies exist around the world. Pluralism typically contains four components, which are diversity, tolerance, commitment and communication.
Pluralism is a way of thinking about therapy that has emerged in recent years. It is based on the assumption that no one therapeutic approach has the monopoly on understanding the causes of distress or on the most helpful therapeutic responses. Instead, it suggests that different clients are likely to want and benefit from different things in therapy. Therefore, it suggests that therapists should be open to respecting understandings and practices from across the counselling and psychotherapy spectrum. The approach places emphasis on tailoring therapy to the individual client.
A pluralistic approach also highlights shared decision making and meta- therapeutic communication: talking to clients about the process of therapy itself, including what they want from it and how they would like to try and get there. Pluralism can be a way of thinking therapy, or it can be a specific practice in which the therapist draws on a range of understandings and methods. The latter, can be considered a form of integrative therapy, in which there is a particular emphasis on collaboration and negotiation across the client- therapist relationship.

3. Why the Need for Changes in our counselling models?
We all have a unique combination of a psycho-cultural and racial context. However, in our Counselling Psychology theoretical texts, research studies and clinical work, this has often not been acknowledged. If we relate to a person without their psychosocial context, we may see something quite different and miss something significant. We won’t see the whole, only some parts.
We can no longer ignore today’s multicultural and multiracial world and the richness it brings, nor the difficult issues and challenges it poses, both outside and inside the counselling room. The time has come to take these issues seriously.
The motivation for adapting and evolving our counselling models, would be to address the concepts of ‘race’, culture and ethnicity, and to understand their complexity. Including these considerations in our models, encourages and enables us to become sensitive to our differences, and to the importance of the social context, cultural and racial roots, and, subsequently, the formation of our complex and ever changing psycho-racial identity. With and through this aim, we have the opportunity of contextualising our clients, in terms of their values, beliefs, behaviour and thinking. In turn, this is a way of appreciating the impact of emotionally powerful experiences such as racism, the migration process, exile or what it means to become a refugee.
Awareness of race, culture and diversity is a fundamental element of good professional practice. Counselling models needs to explicitly include and embrace the values of race, culture and diversity as well as acknowledging their impact. Examples of explicit actions would be the incorporation and promotion of learning related to culture and diversity and, within this, race, ethnicity and difference.

4. Celebrating Differences You don’t celebrate differences by making everybody the same, i.e. the white middle-class model - You celebrate difference by representing diversity, and by doing this you arrive at the core of our similarity, which is our humanity.
The Multi-cultural movement in counselling began 40 years ago, An statement was Wren’s (1962) article “ The culturally Encapsulated counsellor” But the movement gained momentum from observations that minority- group clients receive unequal and poor mental health service. They were, it was claimed undeserved and poorly served. (S .Sue 1997 Article.
The counselling world is essentially characterized by Eurocentric models of thought, based on European concepts.
This exclusive lineage begins with Freud, Jung and Alder, moving on to Winnicott, Bowlby and Klein and later, to Rogers, Erikson and Maslow.
Over the years, more multicultural models of thought have been established. These new models come from Pedersen { recognised for his work as a counsellor, specializing in intercultural and multicultural issues, and his significant influence on the growth and direction of multicultural counselling}, the Sues , Andrew Curry and Courtland Lee.
Their work has been followed in the UK by Jafar Kareem and Roland Littlewood, Lennox Thomas, Joyce Thompson and Colin Lago.

5. All of the above mentioned theorists are working with and creating what are called world-view models, which include African and Asian conceptual systems, and which are far more inclusive than their forebears.
Chikako Cox ( 1982) alongside Speight, Myers and Highlen created a model of three interlocking circles, forming a whole – each circle represents cultural specificity, individual uniqueness and human universality which interrelate to represent a person, and help us to understand them from the perspective of these interacting phenomena.
This model demonstrates the principle “that every person is like all persons, like some persons and like no other person". Subsequently in every therapeutic relationship there will be a combination of likeness and difference, and in order to explore the client as a whole we need to explore the authentic influences of cultural specificity, individual uniqueness and human universality.

6. Interlocking multicultural model
Individual Uniqueness
Human Universality
Cultural Specificity

7. Kareem & Littlewood
“ A psychotherapeutic process that does not take into account a person’s whole life experience, including their race, culture, gender and social values, could lead to a fragmentation of that person”.
(1992)

8. Intercultural Therapy and counselling
The Nafsiyat concept of intercultural counselling was developed by Jafar Kareem in 1983 to offer a special psychotherapy service for black and other ethnic and cultural minorities. This came about after realising the lack of provision for ethnic minority groups.
Intercultural therapy and counselling acknowledges the significance of many factors in a person’s make up. These include race, culture, values, beliefs, social hierarchy, education, traditional structures, morality and spiritual concepts, and approaches to child-rearing. The model takes into account cultural association with, for example, slavery, colonisation and other forms of oppression, ethnic heritage, and their effects on family dynamics. Some of the issues raised in this model are: the sense of loss for many of African-Carribbean origin, sexism, racism, language, refugee status and the external realities.

9. Transformation and challenges
There are more models being developed by people of different races and cultures, and the books are being written and read.
Radical thinkers are leading the way to further change, and developing the work of their successors.
Used as a bridge to communicate across cultures ,inter-cultural therapy allows therapists of totally different life experiences to begin to relate to their culturally different client
Thinking interculturally, is essential, in order to reflect what unconsciously, the white therapist may represent for the black or ethnic minority client, i.e. historical or social transference, such as slavery or other oppressions. Consider the white therapists negative counter-transference, that projects negative images of black people.

10. Challenges and transformation cont ….
The criticism against counselling throughout the earlier period is that, it has remained essentially, Eurocentric and individualistic.
Culture-sensitive counsellors and counselling within a “culture fit” model have been suggested as a way of making the process more appropriate to a diversity of cultures.
The challenge for multicultural counselling, in the next decade, would be to include traditional healing practices as part of its discourse, if it is to encourage the active participation of ethnic minorities.

11. Conclusion
Individual self-development and awareness is at the heart of Counselling Psychology and its training. It is an on-going growth process. It should sync our exploration of our ideals, values, ideas and understanding on issues related to race and culture (our own and others) and form an integral part of our practice in a rich and meaningful way.
Counselling Psychology’s growth and development sits within a socio-historical context and diverse environment. As such, thinking and experience regarding race and culture intersects with various facets under the umbrella of psychology. This includes theoretical models, therapeutic frameworks, research agendas and practice. The concept of a culture-free Counselling Psychology is as improbable as a value-free or neutral Counselling Psychology (Newnes, 1996).
Counselling Psychology holds within its ethos the importance of engaging with individual(s) from all walks of life, gleaned from the premise that the work we do is and should not only be available to a homogenous group of people. To practice in a way that demonstrates this premise, practitioners need to be able to not just be aware of, but also immerse themselves in the dialogue, narrative and thinking of the diverse group of people with whom we purport to engage.
To reach an in-depth level that enables for an honest and open discussion about race, ethnicity and culture in the therapy session, and indeed within the field, Counselling Psychologists require the space to confront and explore their own biases, assumptions and positions of privilege and power.

12. References MEYERS COX- Eleftheriadou, 2010 CHIKAKO COX [ 1982]
SPEIGHT, MYERS AND HIGHLEN
[ A REDIFINATION OF MULTI-CULTURAL COUNSELLING.]
AISHA DUPONT JOSHUA-AUGUST 1994
KAREEM AND LITTLEWOOD
WORKING WITH DIVERSTY AND DIFFERENCE