Counselling across cultures : experiences of intern clinical psychologists

Abstract

Most intern-psychologists carry with them the knowledge they had acquired during training, to their different internship institutions. The aim of this study is to explore and record the experiences of Black and White intern-psychologists during therapy with clients of a different culture to themselves. A group of 6 intern-psychologists were selected by means of Quota sampling method as follows: 3 of the intern-psychologists had to be Black and the other 3 White. All of them had to be finishing their internship in December 2002 and during their 12 months internship, had to have been exposed to clients of a different culture to themselves. In the sample, 2 of the Black intern-psychologists are women and 2 of the White intern-psychologists are men. Of the Black inter-psychologists, 1 is Setswana speaking, 1 Zulu speaking and the other Xhosa speaking. Of the White intern-psychologists, 2 are Afrikaans speaking and 1 English speaking. A context specific methodological approach was used to concentrate on the experiences of the intern-psychologists during therapy with clients of a different culture to themselves. Respondents were asked to fill in a biographical questionnaire and thereafter, data was collected by means of biographical questionnaires and vignettes that will help prompt the intern-psychologists. The interpretation of the data showed that the intern-psychologists experienced differences during therapy with clients of a different culture to themselves as compared to those with the same culture as themselves. Factors such as the client’s race, home language, gender, cultural differences, stereotypes and historical background played an important role in the success or failure of therapy. The need for more exposure to cross cultural training and skills emerged through the interviews.