Cultural Bound Disorders: Multicultural Counseling

Multicultural counseling requires an unbiased view of the world and other cultures to give effective results. It is important for counselors to be knowledgeable of clients' cultures and other factors affecting their behaviors to provide effective counseling. In addition, counselors should be aware prejudices regarding other people and cultures. The symptoms of mental disorders are found worldwide, although there are some cultural bound disorders. Cultural bound disorders or “Syndrome”, tends to manifest on how a person reacts to their environment in relation with their disorder depending on the persons cultural beliefs, values and morals (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2001). Globalization made the world a smaller place and the instant merging of cultures brought about a new challenge.
This has given rise to the need for multicultural sensitivity training, there are a wide range of variables in each culture and how each culture may different world views and how those views affect ones interaction to one’s own environmental experiences. A counselor must be self aware and have competency in cultural sensitive interventions (Nystul,