The concept of culture in the contexts and practices of professional counselling: A constructivist perspective

In this paper we first describe two approaches to the concept of culture as they relate to counselling: the first approach emphasizes the organizational culture of the institution where the counsellor works; the second - the multicultural approach - calls for the recognition of the variety of ethnic cultural backgrounds of those involved in the counselling situation. Then, we present recent developments in the understanding of culture within constructivist perspectives. Last, we suggest a new orientation for counselling training, that of the professional counsellor as a cultural agent, one attentive to context and practices in all their complexities.