Cultural Compatibility In Counseling

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Exordium On an average day in march, one middle school student sat quietly in study hall. He was informed that he had to go and see the school nurse. Initially, he was confused but went anyways to avoid trouble. When he arrived the nurse took him to see one of the guidance counselors. He learned that the counselor had been notified by a faculty member or fellow student that he was at risk of commiting suicide however this students was not at risk of commiting suicide and in fact was not even depressed. He was shy and had mild test anxiety but that’s nothing new for an eighth grader. He denied the claims put forth but the counselor insisted. His protests were met with claims that he was lying and he was forced to stay in the counselor's…show more content…
The two main areas of compatibility are personal and cultural (Paisley). In the same way that you are not best friends with everyone not because you don’t like them but simply that you might have mismatched personalities not everyone can work well with any counselor. Charismatic people work well with charismatic counselors and reserved people work better with reserved counselors. The other part of compatibility is culture. Cultural compatibility is a composition of values held by the client and counselor. It emcopasses areas like race, gender, religion, ethnic background and many more. Having a culturally compatible counselor facilitates a easier connection and minimizes confusion and disagreement. In order to fully meet the the needs of a client a counselor needs to have compatibility with their counselee (Paisley). Propisitio/Partitio Schools do not need mental health counselors because it is not the role of public education to provide mental health services for students and even if they did, incompatibility between students can make counseling ineffective at best and detrimental at worst.…show more content…
Because of the very delicate nature of counseling it is important for school districts to take every precaution to ensure that the mental health services that they offer for student are adequate to avoid inadvertently harming the students. School counselors are traditionally paid 15%-30% more than other school faculty. Since the nature of counseling is non-essential to education, many school cut corners when hiring counselors. There are two main ways that skimping in providing mental health service can be detrimental. First is hiring under experienced counselors. Attempting to save money schools might often hire counselors with little to no experience in the field to help students in one of the most difficult times of their life deal with the some of the most serious issues that they might experience. In some cases, counselors are uneducated, bad at giving practical advice, dealing with distracting personal struggles or in some cases just poor listeners. Anyone can receive a degree in psychology, but knowing how to counsel and actually counseling effectively are two very different things. With such high stakes, taking a gamble on bad counselors is not a risk worth taking; one wrong step and it could cost someone their life. Second, the school might choose to ignore the ASCA recommended ratio and instead opt for a more financially

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