Marriage Counselling in Multicultural Society, Nigerian Experience

Abstract

This paper discusses marriage counselling in Multicultural society: Nigerian experience. The researcher sees Multicultural Counselling as a helping relationship, which involves two or more persons with different culture, beliefs and environment. The paper discusses how multicultural counselling can be applied in marriage in the society with different culture, beliefs, norms and environment. This is because the counsellors should be able to understand the cultural conditioning, of their clients and the socio political system of the society which they are part of. The counsellor should be able to challenge societal values which may likely influence their practice with diverse clients. The demonstration of competence in marriage counselling involves beliefs, attitude, knowledge and skills. The paper also discusses the problems facing the multicultural counselling which include cultural bias among counsellor, lack of knowledge among counsellors and interference of pastors and elders in the counselling profession. Some recommendations were made as follows; development of awareness of cultural values and biases on the part of the counsellors. Counsellors should be aware of the cultural background of each counselee. Counsellors should try to understand the feelings of their clients who are culturally diverse. Counsellors will develop the understanding of the cultural adaptation and finally, counsellors should develop and use appropriate counselling strategies and techniques.