EMPOWERMENT APPLICATIONS OF

10
INCLUSIVE CULTURAL EMPATHY

The primary purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the empowering

impact of inclusive cultural empathy (ICE) for clients. The chapter shows
how insights described in the earlier chapters build a strategy toward that
empowerment to demonstrate the broad impact of inclusion. A broad and
inclusive definition of counseling interventions includes both the educational
and the medical model to accommodate the diversity of culturally different
consumer populations. "Even our definitions of health and pathology can be
culture-bound, especially in the area of mental health. Thus what constitutes
healthy human development may also vary according to the sociocultural
context" (Kagitcibasi, 1988, p. 25). The task of inclusion is to recognize the
many different voices in each client's cultural context that influence the
client's behavior. As the client and counselor become more aware of their
many culture teachers, they become better able to understand one another.
It is essential to recognize the importance of an inclusive perspective to accu-
rately understand each cultural context.
The educational model lends itself to an inclusive interpretation of
counseling and therapy. According to the educational model, the consumer
is typically regarded as an essentially healthy, normal person wanting to learn
new information. The provider's task is to teach the client new ways of learning

199
new information and the consumer's task is to learn new strategies. Just as all
counseling interventions are to some extent educative, so educational change
also has a therapeutic dimension to it. The inclusive perspective provides a
wider range of choices and alternative explanations to the counselor and the
client.
The inclusive perspective recognizes and accommodates differences
between Western and non-Western perspectives described in chapter 2. In
many non-Western cultures the teacher is expected to guide people toward
appropriate personal growth goals. Seeking help from a mental health spe-
cialist for a "mental" problem in these cultures carries a stigma and almost cer-
tainly reduces that person's status in the community. However, a teacher can
provide the same functions of counseling guidance and learning in ways that
will enhance one's status.

MULTICULTURALISM IS INCLUSIVE AND BROADLY DEFINED

ICE as defined in chapter 3 seeks to provide a conceptual framework

that recognizes the complex diversity of a plural society while, at the same
time, suggesting bridges of shared concern that bind culturally different
people to one another. The ultimate outcome may be a generic multicultural
theory, as Segall, Dasen, Berry, and Poortinga (1990) suggested.
There may well come a time when we will no longer speak of cross cul-
tural psychology as such. The basic premise of this field—that to under-
stand human behavior, we must study it in its sociocultural context—may
become so widely accepted that all psychology will be inherently cultural,
(p. 352)
Multiculturalism has more often been regarded as a method than as a
theory. If multiculturalism refers exclusively to narrowly defined culture-
specific categories such as nationality or ethnicity, then multiculturalism
might indeed best be considered merely as a method of analysis. The multi-
cultural method can then be applied to the encounter of specific cultural
groups with one another while emphasizing the culture-specific character-
istics of each group. If, however, multiculturalism refers to inclusively
defined social-system variables such as ethnography, demography, status,
and affiliations, then multiculturalism might better be considered a theory.
In that case, the underlying principle of multicultural theory would empha-
size both the culture-specific characteristics that differentiate and the culture-
general characteristics that unite in the explanation of human behavior.
The accommodation of both within-group and between-groups differences
is required for a comprehensive understanding of complicated cultures
(Pedersen, 2000a).

200 INCLUSIVE CULTURAL EMPATHY

 By defining culture broadly, to include demographic variables (e.g., age,
sex, place of residence), status variables (e.g., social, educational, economic),
and affiliations (formal and informal), as well as ethnographic variables such
as nationality, ethnicity, language, and religion, the construct multicultural
becomes generic to all counseling relationships. The narrow definition of cul-
ture has limited multiculturalism to what might more appropriately be called
"multiethnic" or "multinational" relationships between groups with a shared
sociocultural heritage that includes similarities of religion, history, and com-
mon ancestry. Ethnicity and nationality are important to individual and
familial identity as one subset of culture, but the construct of culture—inclu-
sively defined—goes beyond national and ethnic boundaries. People from the
same ethnic or nationality group may still experience cultural differences. Not
all Blacks have the same experience, nor do all Asians, nor all American Indi-
ans, nor all Hispanics, nor all women, nor all old people, nor all people with
a disability. No particular group is unimodal in its perspective. Therefore, the
broad and inclusive definition of culture is particularly important in prepar-
ing counselors to deal with the complex differences among and between
clients from every cultural group.
Just as differentiation and integration are complementary processes, so
are the emic (culture specific) and etic (culture general) perspectives neces-
sarily interrelated. The basic problem facing counselors is how to describe
behavior in terms that are true to a particular culture while at the same time
comparing those behaviors with a similar pattern in one or more other cul-
tures (Pedersen, 1997). Combining the specific and general viewpoints pro-
vides a multicultural perspective. This larger perspective is an essential
starting point for mental health professionals seeking to avoid cultural encap-
sulation by their own culture-specific assumptions and the empowerment of
clients to avoid encapsulation by their own cultural biases and exploitation
by the cultural biases of others.
Poortinga (1990) defined culture as shared constraints that limit the
behavior repertoire available to members of a sociocultural group in a way
that is different from individuals belonging to some other group. Segall et al.
(1990) affirmed that ecological forces are the prime movers and shapers of
cultural forms, which in turn shape behaviors. "Given these characteristics of
culture, it becomes possible to define it simply as the totality of whatever all
persons learn from all other persons" (Segall et al., 1990, p. 26). Culture is
part of the environment, and all behavior is shaped by culture, so it is rare
(perhaps even impossible) for any human being ever to act without respond-
ing to some aspect of culture.
Culture provides a unique perspective in which two people can disagree
without one necessarily being right and the other being wrong, when their
arguments are based on culturally different assumptions. It becomes possible
for a counselor to identify common ground between two culturally different

EMPOWERMENT APPLICATIONS 201

people whose expectations and ultimate goals are the same even though their
behaviors may be very different. The same individual may even change her or
his cultural referent group during the course of the interview—from empha-
sizing gender, to age, to socioeconomic status, to nationality or ethnicity, to
one or another affiliation. Unless the counselor is skilled enough to under-
stand that each changing salient culture requires a different understanding
and interpretation of that person's behavior, the counselor is not likely to be
accurate in assessing the person's changing behavior. The same culturally
learned behavior may have very different meanings for different people and
even for the same person across time and situations.
Multiculturalism needs to be understood in a perspective that does not
replace or displace traditional theories by invalidating them. Multiculturalism
should complement rather than compete with traditional theories of counsel-
ing. Taking the inclusive definition of culture, it is difficult for a counselor to
be accurate and skilled according to any theory without in some way account-
ing for the ever-changing cultural salience in her or his client's perspective.

EMPOWERMENT THROUGH INCLUSIVE CULTURAL EMPATHY

Power is difficult to measure, but generally it refers to a person's ability

to act independently from the influence or control of others. However, in a
collective, less individualistic society, power might be demonstrated by the
person's having chosen to be influenced by the group. ICE emphasizes a sen-
sitivity to the balance of power in counseling. Competence requires that the
counselor and client "manage" and regulate the distribution of power in the
interview. The counselor must know how much power to exert in a multi-
cultural interview to facilitate the client's empowerment. If the counselor
exerts too much power the client will reject counseling as more of a hassle
than the problem was in the first place; if the counselor exerts too little power
the client will reject counseling as ineffective and useless (Pedersen, ZOOOb).
Some theories of counseling define successful outcomes as empowering the
client so that the client becomes less helpless and more powerful through the
counseling relationship. Functionally, we might define ICE as the process of
transferring power to the client in a safe context while preventing the prob-
lem from controlling the client.
In a collectivist culture the needs of the family may supersede the needs
of individual members. The exercise of power that separated husband from
wife or children from parents might have a destructive long-term effect in iso-
lating one parent from the other or a child from the larger family. Empower-
ment would be developed much differently in this collectivist context than
in a more individualistic society in which the rights and privileges of indi-
viduals are the primary vehicles of empowering clients.

202 INCLUSIVE CULTURAL EMPATHY

 If the task of counseling is to increase the power of the client and reduce
the power of the problem over the client, then counseling can be described
as a three-way distribution of power through a temporary means-oriented
coalition between the client and the counselor against the problem. There
are several methods for the effective multicultural training of counselors to
manage power effectively from the client's cultural perspective.
First, counselors must be able to define power in each client's unique and
different cultural context. Second, counselors must be able to appropriately
adjust their own increase or decrease of power in the multicultural interview
over time, as the salient balance of power changes. Third, counselors must
have a wide repertoire of counseling styles to meet the culture-specific needs
of each culturally different client as they change over time. Fourth, counselors
must be able to develop and maintain rapport with culturally different clients
in an enduring coalition of the counselor and client against the problem.
Fifth, counselors must be able to work toward the client's ability to function
in her or his cultural context without the counselor's assistance.
Figure 10.1 describes this triadic interaction between the counselor,
client, and problem in which the client is initially dominated by the problem
and the counselor intervenes to restore a balance of power for the client.
Counseling then becomes a process whereby a client's contribution of power
or influence increases and, as an inverse function of this process, the prob-

HIGH

Client
tr
UJ

O
o.

Problem

LOW

X1 X2
PAST PRESENT FUTURE

Figure 10.1. A schematic description of the ratio of power influence over time for
counselor, counselee, and problem with three points (X,, X2, X3) in the counseling
process. From The Triad Training Model, by P. Pedersen, 1966, master's thesis,
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

EMPOWERMENT APPLICATIONS 203

lem's capacity for power or influence decreases. The counselor intervenes to
encourage the client's progress up the slope through a client-counselor coali-
tion that balances the power influence of the problem.
As Figure 10.1 illustrates, at any point along the scale the power of
the counselor plus the power of the client should be approximately equal to
or greater than the power of the problem (Counselor + Client < Problem).
The effective counselor needs to vary the power of intervention according
to the client's changing needs.
The three situations (Xh X2, X3) are indicated in Figure 10.1. In Xb the
client has little power and is dominated by the problem, requiring the coun-
selor to exert more power than the client. In X2, the client is able to exert
enough power so that the counselor may back off and reduce power. Situa-
tion X3 shows the client as being able to manage the problem almost inde-
pendently and maintain a balance. The measures of high and low power
influence are metaphors and not absolute entities to accommodate a rela-
tively effective client facing a difficult problem or a relatively ineffective
client facing a mild problem.
The counselor needs to coordinate the power of intervention accord-
ing to the variable rate and direction of a client's movement to maintain a
client-counselor coalition and balance of power in the interview. Coun-
selors might exert more power through confrontation and interpretation and
less power through reflection and nondirective accommodation. To the
extent that a counselor and a client come from different cultures, it is par-
ticularly difficult to maintain the appropriate balance of power in a counsel-
ing interview. The research indicating that a positive relationship is the
most important predictor of success in counseling, however, suggests that
this balance of power must be maintained for counseling to be successful.
Figure 10.1 provides a conceptual framework for demonstrating the coun-
seling interaction and for defining the goal of training as increasing a coun-
selor's skill in maintaining an effectively balanced relationship in counseling.
ICE provides the strategy for maintaining a balance in counseling as the
means of empowering clients.
Balance suggests a broad and inclusive frame of reference to the system
or field surrounding each unit or identity. Although Western approaches
acknowledge the importance of solutions, there is less understanding of how
problems are also important in social services. In many non-Westernized sys-
tems there is less emphasis on separating the person or persons from a pre-
senting problem or source of difficulty than there is in Westernized systems.
There is also less of a tendency to locate the problem inside an isolated indi-
vidual and more of an attempt to relate the individual's problem to other per-
sons or even the cosmology. For example, if a person believes external forces
in the cultural context shape the events around her or him, then that person's
relationships to others and to the environment become particularly impor-

204 INCLUSIVE CULTURAL EMPATHY

tant. Balance in the context of counseling skill is a dynamic process within a
context in which all elements, pain as well as pleasure, serve a useful and nec-
essary function. This non-Western emphasis is typically more holistic in
acknowledging the interaction of persons and environments in both their
positive and negative aspects.
The restoration of balance through ICE provides an alternative goal to
the more individualized goal of solving social problems. In the context of bal-
ance as a criterion of health, social change is perceived as a process of un-
resolved ambiguity, tension, and reciprocity of contrasting alternatives rather
than the end goal of resolving differences in favor of one preferred alterna-
tive over the others. Balance is a process rather than a conclusive event. In a
similar mode, the problems, pain, and otherwise negative aspects of social sit-
uations also provide necessary resources for creating a dynamic balance with
pleasure and happiness, recognizing the importance of both negative and pos-
itive aspects.
Counseling occurs in a force field of push-and-pull factors in which the
counselor seeks to be helpful, the client seeks to reconcile internalized ambi-
guity, and the problem—as a metaphorical third presence—seeks to continue
controlling the client, all aspects of which are culturally mediated. In the
mode of social power theory, counseling occurs in the context of an equilib-
rium between the counselor seeking coalition with the client against the
resistance of a problem. Negotiating a coalition between the client and the
counselor describes the task functions of counseling in operational terms.
Cultural variables can intervene in a counseling interview in at least
three different ways. One way is through the cultures of the client, another
is through the cultures of the counselor, and the third is through the cultures
of the problems that define the context of a counseling interview and take on
characteristics from contributing cultural aspects of the environment.
There are numerous implications for counseling and education in the
accommodation of complexity and balance in our analysis. First of all, simple
explanations are temptingly convenient but dangerous approaches to under-
Standing the real world around us. The counselor is guilty of reductionism
when assuming that all persons from a particular group or culture have exactly
the same needs and behaviors, substituting symbiotic stereotypes for the real
world of the unique individual before them. Reductionism ignores cultural
variations among clients from the same culture. The measure of counseling
competence is not merely identifying the many cultures, groups, or identities
to which we each belong but being able to track which of those identities is
salient at any given point in time from the client's viewpoint. The competent
counselor will avoid reductionism through ICE.
Second, complexity is our friend and not our enemy in the search for
the fuzzy, approximate, and indeterminate truths of reality. Every counselor
is looking for easy answers and the magic bullet to cure all problems. Teach-

EMPCWERMENT APPLICATIONS 205

ers usually help students simplify their understanding of problems and solutions.
Sometimes that simplification results in distorting reality. If a teacher can
accept the necessity and even the potential usefulness of helping a student
accept and understand problems in more complicated—but perhaps more cul-
turally authentic—terms, then the positive value of complicated thinking
will become apparent.
Third, only those who are able to escape being caught up in the web of
their own assumptions and maintain a balanced perspective will be able to
demonstrate ICE. The dangers of cultural encapsulation and the dogma of
increasingly technique-oriented definitions of the educational process have
frequently been mentioned in the theories of professional counseling associ-
ations and criteria for accreditation of counselor educational programs. To
escape from encapsulation, counselor educators need to challenge the cultural
bias of their own untested assumptions. To leave our assumptions untested or,
worse yet, to be unaware of our culturally learned assumptions is not consis-
tent with the standards of good professional counseling (Pedersen, 2000a).
There are several implications of considering balance as a multicultural
counseling skill. Each implication contributes toward a capability for under-
standing and facilitating a balanced perspective in multicultural social services.
The following examples demonstrate how ICE promotes client empowerment
through maintaining a balance of power.
1. Concepts of knowledge must be expanded to go beyond the
boundaries of rational process. Knowledge in other cultures has
many forms. There are many ways to gain knowledge, for exam-
ple, intuition and other forms of knowledge accumulated
through experience. Although reasoning is a valuable skill, it is
presumed to get in the way of knowledge in many non-Western
cultures and cut off sources of information. For that reason,
what appears to be logical inconsistency and paradox become
valuable approximations of truth in many societies. Logic is
only one form of validation, dependent on a scientific, rational,
and abstract principle to describe human behavior. The crite-
ria of balance suggest other sources of validation as well.
2. The importance of relationships must be recognized when
working in societies that do not emphasize individualism. In
many societies, individual development is less important for a
client's fulfillment. Appropriate spiritual alternatives describe
the self as participating in a unity with all things and not lim-
ited by the changing illusions of self and nonself. In the non-
Western perspective, an individual's unity with the universe
goes beyond the self to cosmic unity. The individual is in a con-
text of relationships between people in a cosmos.

206 INCLUSIVE CULTURAL EMPATHY

3. Westernized perspectives, which have dominated the field of
counseling, must not become the single criterion of "modern-
ized" perspectives. Although non-Western cultures have had a
profound impact on the West in recent years, many non-Western
cultures seem more determined than ever to emulate the West
as a social model. There is also evidence that the more mod-
ernized a society, the more their problems and solutions resem-
ble those of a Westernized society. Whereas Western society is
fearful of technological domination that might deteriorate
social values and destroy the meaning of traditional culture,
non-Western societies are frequently more concerned that the
technology will not be available to them. The task is one of dif-
ferentiating between modernized alternatives outside the West-
ern model; otherwise we end up teaching Westernization in the
name of modernization. We need indigenous, non-Western
models of modernity to escape from our own reductionistic
assumptions. Modernization does not necessarily require West-
ernization if the persons are empowered to modernize through
their own indigenous ideologies.
4. Change is not inevitably a positive and good outcome of coun-
seling. A balanced perspective between changing and unchang-
ing values requires that we recognize that many cultures do not
accept change and development as desirable. In Western cul-
tures we say, "If you don't know what to do, at least do some-
thing!" There is a strong predisposition toward valuing change
itself as intrinsically good, moving toward a solution, reconcil-
ing ambiguity, and promising better things for the future in
Western cultures. A contrasting perspective suggests that
change may be bad. To understand this change process, we need
to identify those values that do not change but rather become
the hinges on which the door of change swings. In a cosmic per-
spective, it is possible to deny the reality of change entirely,
along with the cause-effect thinking, in favor of an external
unchanging picture of ultimate reality. A balanced perspective
allows the individual to see events as both positive and nega-
tive at the same time without oversimplifying events.
5. We do not control our environment, but neither does our envi-
ronment control us. In the range of value orientations, there is
a clear division among cultures that believe it is one's right and
even responsibility to control the environment, other cultures
that teach just as firmly that one is controlled by one's envi-
ronment, and a third group that teaches that one interacts with
the environment so that the question of control is irrelevant.

EMPOWERMENT APPLICATIONS 207

 Whichever basic assumption is made will profoundly affect the
criteria for intercultural training in any situation. An increased
awareness of ecological balance has helped us understand the
interaction with persons and environment as a complex and
certainly not a simple phenomenon.
6. Ability to recover from mistakes is more important than per-
fection as a criterion for social service. Counselors working in
an intercultural environment and not making mistakes may
perhaps not be taking enough chances. The skilled professional
will make as many errors as the novice. The difference is the
skilled professional will be able to recover and the novice will
not. In learning about intercultural criteria, it is important to
break out of a success—failure dichotomy because ultimately the
outcomes of social interaction are seldom defined clearly as a
success or as a failure. The emphasis in identifying intercultural
criteria needs to go beyond dichotomies to develop the poten-
tially positive effects of each problem as an analogue or a range
of possibilities.
7. Very few institutions offer specializations in cross-cultural men-
tal health, although increasingly departments are offering iso-
lated courses in cross-cultural communication. There is a need
for a network across disciplines and institutions to coordinate
the efforts of multicultural social services. Furthermore, there is
a need to involve the "real world" of the community and reduce
the artificiality of classroom training. Points 6 and 7 both
demonstrate empowerment through exclusion of alternatives
rather than excluding choices.
8. The literature on intercultural counseling is diffuse, varies a
great deal in quality, and is published in journals of limited cir-
culation. There is a need for a series of review publications that
establish the threshold for quality control in previous as well as
current publications. In the same regard, there is a need for
more attention to multicultural issues in national meetings of
professional associations, which presently invest too little time
on cross-cultural papers. There is also a need for developing cri-
teria from research on the range of non-Western alternatives to
"talk therapy."
9. Finally, intercultural research has failed to develop grounded
theory for multicultural social services. There are a number of
reasons why this is true. First, the emphasis of multicultural
research has been on abnormal rather than normal behavior
across cultures. Second, only in the 1970s has research identi-
fied universal aspects across cultures, and then only for the more

208 INCLUSIVE CULTURAL EMPATHY

 serious categories of disturbance such as schizophrenia and
affective psychoses. Third, the complexity of multicultural vari-
ables in research is difficult to quantify. Fourth, multicultural
research that is available has lacked an applied emphasis and
has remained largely theoretical or abstract. Fifth, there has not
been sufficient interdisciplinary collaboration among mental
health related disciplines on multicultural research. Sixth, the
emphasis of multicultural research has been on the symptom
rather than the interaction of person, profession, institution, or
community.

THE DANGERS OF CULTURAL ENCAPSULATION

AND EXCLUSION

It is possible to argue for inclusion from the moral and ethical perspec-
tive of social justice by linking exclusion and encapsulation to the values we
espouse in counseling. ICE provides an alternative to the exclusion and
encapsulation that can capture a counselor. The culturally encapsulated indi-
vidual is just as able to evade reality through ethnocentrism ("mine is best")
as through relativism ("to each her or his own"). Maintaining a cocoon is
accomplished by evading reality and depending entirely on one's own inter-
nalized value assumptions about what is good for society. Isolation is accen-
tuated by the inherent capacity of culture-bound and time-honored values to
prevail against the tentativeness of present knowledge. It is therefore neces-
sary for the culture-sensitive individual not only to learn new knowledge and
skills but also to reorganize the old knowledge that no longer applies. The
encapsulated individual is singularly unable to adapt to a constantly chang-
ing sociocultural context.
The most familiar illustration of powerlessness is cultural encapsulation.
Encapsulation, as we discussed in chapter 5 of this volume, as a component
of knowledge competence, is a result of several basic and familiar processes in
our professional activity as a component of skill competence (Wrenn, 1985).
Wrenn's five-point description of encapsulation demonstrates how counsel-
ing as a profession has protected itself against the complex inclusion of multi-
culturalism.
1. We define reality according to one set of cultural assumptions
and stereotypes that becomes more important than the real
world outside.
2. We become insensitive to cultural variations among individuals
and assume that our view is the only real or legitimate one. It is
not surprising that the assumption that "I know better than they
do what is good for them" is offensive to the target audience.

EMPOWERMENT APPLICATIONS 209

 3. Each person has unreasoned assumptions he or she accepts
without proof. When these assumptions are threatened by
another religion, political view, or culture, individuals can eas-
ily become fearful or defensive. When people of the host cul-
ture are perceived as threatening, they quickly become an
"enemy" to be opposed and ultimately defeated in the name of
self-preservation.
4. A technique-oriented job definition further contributes toward
and perpetuates the process of encapsulation. The world is sim-
plistically divided into a polarity of friends and enemies, us and
them, with each relationship being evaluated according to
whether or not it contributes to getting the job done.
5. When there is no evaluation of other viewpoints, individuals
may experience encapsulation by absolving themselves of any
responsibility to interpret the behavior of others as relevant and
meaningful to their own life activity.
Some people have developed a dependency on one authority, one
theory, one truth. These encapsulated people tend to be trapped in one way
of thinking, believing that theirs is the universal way. They are trapped in an
inflexible structure that resists adaptation to alternative ways of thinking. In
contrast, a liberated mode of thinking represents an effort to establish empa-
thy with other people different from ourselves. Empathy is a process of learn-
ing foreign beliefs, assumptions, or perspectives, feelings, and consequences
in such a way that the outsider participates in the host culture. Through mul-
ticultural contact, people can be liberated to cope with constant change and
to feel empathy with other alternatives available to them.

THE INTRAPERSONAL CULTURAL GRID

The starting point for education and training about ICE is to clarify how
culture controls one's behavior with or without one's permission. Imagine
that several hundred culture teachers, collected by you over your lifetime,
are sitting with you discussing the decisions you are now making. These cul-
ture teachers include family, friends, fantasies, mentors, and any others who
have made a significant impact on your life. This self-talk or internal dia-
logue shapes your decisions and behaviors from within (Pedersen, ZOOOb).
Our students and clients, of course, bring their culture teachers with them
also. To understand how these culture teachers control behavior, ask yourself
three questions. First, what specific behavior are you trying to understand?
Second, what did you expect to happen as a result of displaying that behav-
ior? Third, who were the culture teachers who taught you to display that par-

210 INCLUSIVE CULTURAL EMPATHY

ticular behavior at that particular time to get that positive expectation?
This chain of questions was described earlier in chapter 5 (this volume)
and displayed in the intrapersonal cultural grid in Figure 5.1.
The intrapersonal (inside-the-person) cultural grid incorporates broadly
defined social system variables on one dimension and personal behavior-
expectation-values on the other, in a personal-cultural orientation. Culture
controls each specific behavior or identifiable action of each individual
through that person's expectations. Expectations are the cognitive variables
that include behavior-outcome and stimulus-outcome expectancies that
guide the individual's choice of behavior. Expectations, in turn, are con-
trolled by underlying values. Values are the belief systems that explain the
importance and prioritize expectations. Social system variables are the
sources in society from which values are learned. An accurate understanding
of culture requires that we understand how an individual's behaviors in a par-
ticular context are controlled by learned expectations and values based on or
taught by broadly defined social system variables.
Cultural teachers might come from family relationships such as relatives
or from business associates, fellow countrypersons, ancestors, or those with
shared beliefs. Power relationships based on social friendships, sponsors and
mentors, subordinates, and supervisors or superiors may provide cultural
teachers. Memberships shared with coworkers or in organizations, gender or
age groups, and workplace colleagues may contribute cultural teachers. A
wide range of nonfamily relationships, friendships, classmates, neighbors, or
just people like yourself may also have contributed teachers.

THE INTERPERSONAL CULTURAL GRID

ICE recognizes that the same behaviors may have different meanings
and that different behaviors may have the same meaning. By establishing the
shared positive expectations between and among people, the accurate inter-
pretation of behaviors becomes possible. The interpersonal (between-persons)
cultural grid (see Figure 10.2) is useful in understanding how cultural differ-
ences influence the interaction of two or more individuals. It is important to
interpret behaviors accurately in terms of the intended intentions, expecta-
tions, and values expressed by those behaviors. If two people are accurate in
their interpretation of one another's expectation, they do not always need to
display the same behavior. The two people may agree to disagree about which
behavior is appropriate and continue to work together in harmony despite
their different styles of behavior.
Exhibit 10.1 lists an exercise for applying the interpersonal cultural grid.
According to the exercise, perhaps the shared expectation of best friendship
that you and your friend share and in which you both trust provides a common

EMPOWERMENT APPLICATIONS 211

 BEHAVIOR OR ACTION

SAME DIFFERENT

O
I-
POSITIVE NEGATIVE
LU

SAME
CC
O
1 II

POSITIVE
O
LU DIFFERENT
Q_
X
LU III IV

NEGATIVE

Figure 10.2. The interpersonal cultural grid. From A Handbook for Developing
Multicultural Awareness, Third Edition (p. 98), by P. B. Pedersen, 2000, Alexandria,
VA: American Counseling Association. Copyright 2000 by the American Counseling
Association. Reprinted with permission.

EXHIBIT 10.1
Applying the Interpersonal Cultural Grid

Identify your best friend and write that individual's name here:

Now make a list of behaviors that your best friend does that are different from how
you might behave in a similar situation.
Now make a list of behaviors that you do that are different from how your friend
might behave in a similar situation.
What are some of the things that your best friend does to or with you that would
not be acceptable if done to a stranger?
What are some of the things that you do to or with your best friend that would not
be acceptable if done by a stranger?

212 INCLUSIVE CULTURAL EMPATHY

ground that is so powerful and important that your tolerance of different
behaviors is much greater with regard to your friend than it would be for a
stranger. This is an example of the interpersonal cultural grid in action.
Figure 10.2 divides the interaction between two individuals into four
possible quadrants (Pedersen, 2000). In the first quadrant, two individuals
have similar behaviors and similar positive expectations. There is a high level
of accuracy in both individuals' interpretation of each other's behavior and
expectation. This aspect of the relationship would be congruent and proba-
bly harmonious. We are focusing exclusively on positive expectations here.
If the two individuals share the same negative expectations ("I hate you") and
behavior ("I am beating you up!"), the relationship may be congruent but
certainly not harmonious.
In the second quadrant, two individuals have different behaviors but share
the same positive expectations. There is a high level of agreement that the two
people both expect trust and friendliness, for example, but there is a low level of
accuracy because each person perceives and interprets the other individual's
behavior incorrectly. This relationship is characteristic of multicultural conflict
in which each person is applying a self-reference criterion to interpret the other
individual's behavior in terms of this person's own self-reference expecta-
tions and values. The conditions described in the second quadrant are very
unstable and, unless the shared positive expectations are quickly made explicit,
the relationship is likely to change toward the third quadrant.
In the third quadrant, two people have the same behaviors but differ
greatly in their expectations. There is actually a low level of agreement in pos-
itive expectations between the two people even though similar or congruent
behaviors give the appearance of harmony and agreement. One person may
continue to expect trust and friendliness, whereas the other person is now
negatively distrustful and unfriendly, for example. Both persons are, however,
presenting the same smiling, glad-handing behaviors.
If these two people discover that the reason for their conflict is their dif-
ferences of expectation, and if they are then able to return their relationship
to an earlier stage when they did perhaps share the same positive expectations
of trust and friendliness, for example, then their interaction may return to the
second quadrant. This would require each person to adjust their interpreta-
tion of the other's different behavior to fit their shared positive expectation
of friendship and trust. If, however, their expectations remain different, then
even though their behaviors are similar and congruent, the conflict is likely
to increase until their interaction moves to the fourth quadrant.
In the fourth quadrant the two people have different behaviors and also
different or negative expectations. Not only do they disagree in their behav-
iors toward one another, but now they also disagree on their expectations of
friendship and trust. This relationship is likely to result in hostile disengage-
ment. If the two people can be coached to increase their accuracy in identi-

EMPOWERMENT APPLICATIONS 213

fying one another's positive expectations, however, there may still be a
chance for them to return to an earlier stage of their relationship in which
their positive expectations were similar even though their behaviors might
have been very different, as in the second quadrant.
Take smiling, for instance. Smiling is an ambiguous behavior. It may or
may not imply trust and friendliness. The smile may or may not be interpreted
accurately. Outside of its culturally learned context the smile has no fixed
meaning. Two people with similar expectations of friendliness may not both
be smiling. However, one person may expect friendliness and the other may
want to sell a used car, even though both of them are smiling. In a similar
mode, two people may have the same expectation of trust, respect, happiness,
or success, even though the culturally learned behaviors attached to that
expectation may be very different for each of the two persons.
Let us take, for example, a counselor working with a client from a dif-
ferent culture. The counselor is very formal in counseling relationships and
sometimes even professionally cool toward clients, keeping them at a distance.
The client seems almost the opposite in style, preferring to be friendly and
informal toward everyone. Now let us consider how this relationship might
progress using the four quadrants of the interpersonal cultural grid.
Before the counselor and client got together, they had heard good things
about each other, about how the other person was friendly, trusting, respect-
ful, and competent, so both were looking forward to working together. This
might describe the conditions of Quadrant I in Figure 10.2. The positive
expectations and behaviors were congruent and similar.
During the first week the counselor and client behaved quite differently,
with the client being informal and the counselor being very formal in their
interactions. Each person interpreted the other's behavior negatively and
contrary to the original expectation. They failed to recognize that they really
shared the same expectation. Because their behaviors were so different from
one another, neither one realized that they both had the same positive expec-
tation for trust, respect, and harmony. These are the conditions of Quadrant
II. This quadrant defines an example of cross-cultural conflict when the two
persons misinterpret the other's behaviors and impose their own culturally
learned interpretation on the other person's behaviors.
In the second week the differences in behavior between the counselor
and client have continued and are now a source of irritation and conflict
between them as the interaction moves to Quadrant III. The counselor has
now demanded that the client become more formal and less informal, and the
client has reluctantly agreed. At this point the client no longer expects trust,
respect, and harmony, as had been the case in Quadrant I and II, but both
counselor and client are displaying the same congruent behaviors to give the
appearance of harmony. Their similar behaviors might lead them and others
to assume that they had the same expectations, but ultimately both counselor

2 J4 INCLUSIVE CULTURAL EMPATHY

and client would discover the differences in expectation and probably feel
betrayed by the other person.
In the third week the client is feeling very hostile at having to behave
in such an unnaturally formal way, and the conflict between the counselor
and client becomes more pronounced as indicated in Quadrant IV. The client
gives up and leaves counseling to preserve self-esteem and dignity, and the
counselor willingly gives up the client to preserve self-esteem and dignity.
Both counselor and client will be very confused by the other person and what
happened between them. The confusion is likely to result in open hostility
and alienation between the counselor and client.
The hostile disengagement of culturally different counselors and clients
is not, however, inevitable. If we look at a second scenario of this hypotheti-
cal relationship, we can identify an alternative outcome. Here again, the same
counselor favors formality working with the same client who favors informal-
ity. Before getting together, each has heard good things about the other and
shared the positive expectations and behaviors described in Quadrant I.
During the first week both the counselor and the client notice that they
are behaving differently. In discussing these very different behaviors, they dis-
cover that they have the same expectations for trust, respect, and harmony,
as indicated in Quadrant I and II, but that their behaviors for expressing those
expectations are very different, as in Quadrant II. By calling attention to the
differences in behavior and the similarity of expectations, several options
are now available to the counselor and client. One, they might agree to dis-
agree about what kind of behavior is appropriate, and each person may con-
tinue with the formal or informal behavior, but now the other person is better
able to interpret that incongruent behavior accurately as an expression of
trust and respect. Two, they might both try to bend their behavior toward the
other person's preference, making an exception for that particular instance
because it is important that the shared expectation for trust and respect be
communicated to the other person. Three, by focusing on the shared common-
ground expectation and not being distracted by the incongruent or different
behaviors, the counselor and client have now established a basis for their
continuing relationship without either person having to sacrifice cultural
integrity by compromising values.
During the third week the counselor and client may well be bothered by
the differences in behavior although they are now able to interpret each
other's behavior accurately and appropriately. They decide to concentrate on
their similar positive expectations rather than their different behaviors, and
they each adjust their behavior accordingly. Their interaction is not without
conflict, but the positive shared expectations provide a common ground for
them to work out differences in behavior and accommodate one another as
in Quadrant II. The relationship does not move to the interpersonal conflict
of Quadrants III and IV.

EMPOWERMENT APPLICATIONS 215

 In the fourth week, the client and counselor discover some advantages
of working with a person whose behaviors are so different as long as they can
be certain of their shared positive expectations for trust, respect, and harmony
as in Quadrant II. In the fifth week, the counselor and client find that they
have both modified their behaviors at least with regard to one another and
now they quite often share the same behaviors as well as the same positive
expectations, as in Quadrant I and II. In the sixth week, both counselor and
client have learned to accurately assess each other's behavior, and the shared
positive expectation for trust, harmony, and respect has been strengthened as
in Quadrant I and II, contributing to the success of the counseling.
In this way the interpersonal cultural grid provides a conceptual road
map for ICE to interpret another person's behavior accurately in the context
of that person's culturally learned expectations. It is not necessary for the coun-
selor and client to share the same behaviors as long as they share the same
positive expectations.
The interpersonal cultural grid can be a useful tool for analyzing the
ways that culture influences behavior both within the person and between
persons. It provides practical assistance in managing the complexity of cul-
turally learned behaviors, expectations, and values. This combining of per-
sonal with cultural suggests a way out of a dilemma for cross-cultural research.
On the one hand, there are data suggesting that cultural differences exist and
must be accounted for in cross-cultural contact. On the other hand, attempts
to describe cultural aspects through labels have tended to result in stereo-
typing. Consequently, attempts to discriminate according to cultural differ-
ences have been disguised in ways that would protect an organization or
person against being accused of racism.
Although the cultural label may be predictive in aggregate data about
large groups from the same culture, it is less helpful in dealing with a partic-
ular individual from that culture as in a counseling situation. It is apparent
that an accurate perception of another person's complex cultural perspective
is an important skill for counselors in any and all situations.
Unless the cross-cultural misunderstanding or conflict is identified and
distinguished from the elements of personal conflict, the following negative
chain of events may occur.
1. The different behaviors will suggest that expectations may also
be different.
2. As different behaviors persist, the two persons may conclude
that they do not share the same positive expectations and
intentions.
3. One of the two persons may choose to modify behaviors to
match the other person, perhaps caused by the power constraints
of the more powerful partner. However, the sense of shared pos-
itive expectations will become more and more questionable.

216 INCLUSIVE CULTURAL EMPATHY

 4. Both partners may ultimately resort to total conflict in which
both expectations and behaviors are different and war is declared.
5. Both partners will conclude that there is a low level of agree-
ment between them.
6. Neither partner will be aware that there is also a low level of
accuracy in their communication.
If the multicultural context of the situation is identified and distin-
guished as separate from personal hostility, the following positive chain of
events is likely to occur.
1. The different behaviors will be understood as expressions of
shared positive expectations.
2. The two or more persons will conclude that they do share the
same positive expectations in spite of their different behaviors.
3. One or both of the two persons may choose to modify their
behavior to match the other person so that both the positive
expectations and the behaviors will be similar.
4. Both partners may ultimately move toward a more harmonious
situation in which both the positive expectations and the
behaviors are similar.
5. Both partners may conclude there is a high level of agreement
between them.
6. Both partners will be aware that there is a high level of accu-
racy in their communication.
There is good reason to believe that counseling fulfills a need for both
the counselor and the client beyond gathering information. The interpersonal
cultural grid provides structure to the culture-centered counseling interview
process, suggesting criteria for evaluating both the individual performance and
interaction. Culturally learned values and expectations are essential data for
culture-centered counseling. The interpersonal cultural grid is a heuristic
framework to help culture-centered counselors differentiate cultural from
personal aspects of the interview.
A young teaching assistant goes to meet his foreign-born professor for
the first time and finds the professor to be loud and overly friendly. In
the young teaching assistant's culture, he has learned not to trust peo-
ple who are so forward in their manner. The young man could see that
his own contrasting quiet and submissive style was not respected by the
professor, although he wanted and needed to work in harmony with
his professor. During this initial meeting, the young man decides to
become boisterous, loud, and overly friendly to reflect his professor's
manner so that they would get along with one another. Nevertheless,
his first impressions of the professor are negative, and he begins to

EMPOWERMENT APPLICATIONS 217

 resent having to change his own ways to accommodate the professor's
preferred style.

1. Describe both the young man and the professor as you see them in
your mind's eye. Use at least 10 adjectives and categorize each
adjective as a demographic, ethnographic, status, or affiliation
variable.
2. How do you think the professor and the young man are feeling as the
young man enters the room?
3. What are some positive and negative thoughts in each of their minds?
4. What might each conclude at the end of the first meeting?
5. What cultural assumptions have influenced your own perceptions of
these two people?

As an example of how the interpersonal cultural grid might be used to

analyze this complex cultural situation, let us examine three different behav-
iors from this brief case study. We work in two different directions in our
analysis of these behaviors. On the one hand, we want to consider possible
alternative meanings behind the behavior and decide which meaning is more
likely. On the other hand, we want to consider the range of social system vari-
ables inferred about the person performing the behavior and decide which
social system variable is the most salient in this situation.
The three behaviors are as follows: (a) The professor greets the teach-
ing assistant in a loud and overly friendly way; (b) The teaching assistant
responds to the professor in a quiet and submissive style; and (c) The teach-
ing assistant decides to become loud and boisterous toward his professor.
First, the loud and friendly greeting by the professor might express the
positive expectation for friendliness grounded in the value of international
harmony and learned from social systems such as his family and his previ-
ous contacts with other international students. There is the possibility of
course that the professor really does not expect friendliness and is showing
his superior status or is being patronizing toward foreign-born persons.
Even in the midst of many negative expectations and mixed motives, it
may still be possible to identify some small area of shared positive expec-
tation. This area of common ground, however small it may be, provides the
platform on which a counselor can begin to construct a meaningful and
lasting relationship.
Second, the quiet and submissive greeting by the teaching assistant
might express friendliness and respect grounded in the value of status
and learned from social systems such as his family, religion, social status
group, and other sources. There is the possibility here also that the student
is actually being unfriendly, apathetic, or disinterested. Here again, how-
ever, the task is to discover some small area of shared positive expectation

218 INCLUSIVE CULTURAL EMPATHY

so that the similar values can be allowed to bring the two persons closer
together.
Third, the loud and boisterous adaptation by the teaching assistant
might express a willingness to change his behavior in deference to the pref-
erences of the professor as an expression of friendliness and respect grounded
in values learned from social system groups back home. The task is to go
beyond the behaviors being displayed to the expectations and values behind
those behaviors so that the behaviors can be interpreted accurately and
appropriately.
There are several specific ways in which the interpersonal cultural grid
can be used as a practical tool for counselors.
1. The interpersonal cultural grid provides a framework for ana-
lyzing how culturally different behaviors might derive from cul-
turally similar expectations and values.
2. Personal-cultural orientations can be compared across time or
people to demonstrate how the same behavior can be explained
by different expectations or values in different cultural settings.
3. The dynamic and changing priorities of social system variables
can be matched with personal cognitive variables for each time
and place and person to prevent stereotyping.
4- A comprehensive description of culture emerges from the
framework that includes demographic, status, affiliation, and
ethnographic variables in a broad and comprehensive range of
cultural resources for each individual.
5. The close relationship between culturally learned behaviors
and culturally different expectations or values behind similar
behaviors combines the culturally specific emic with the cul-
turally general etic aspects of a multicultural situation by sepa-
rating areas of similarity from areas of difference.
Let us consider several examples in which the interpersonal cultural grid
might facilitate ICE. In each example, the same series of steps for applying
the interpersonal cultural grid would follow. These guidelines are offered as
sources of working hypotheses or best-guess interpretations that would be
checked out with actual clients in actual counseling situations.
Step I. Identify the relevant behaviors being displayed or presented by
the person or persons.
Step 2. Identify the positive expectations that would or might be attached
to the behavior. "If I do this, then that will happen."
Step 3. Identify the value variable that is most likely to be salient for
the person or persons being considered at the time the behavior was
displayed.

EMPOWERMENT APPLICATIONS 219

 Step 4. Identify the social systems that may have taught the person the
value on which the expectation and ultimately the behavior are based.
Step 5. Develop rival hypotheses that put both positive and negative
interpretations on the client's behavior and consider the range of alter-
natives for counseling goals.
Step 6. Identify those positive expectations that you think might be shared
by both the persons in the brief case examples as the basis of common
ground in working with both persons.
Example 1: Your client grew up as an immigrant in a fairly rough sec-
tion of New York City, but his wife grew up in a quiet rural small town. They
have adopted an Indochinese refugee child to live with them in New York
City. They argue constantly about the child. The husband encourages the
child to spend time in the streets getting to know other children in the neigh-
borhood and learning to fit in. The wife wants the child to avoid contact with
other children in the neighborhood because of the dangers the child might
encounter. The husband wants the child to learn the rules of the street
because it is an unsafe neighborhood to live in if you don't know the rules.
The wife wants to discourage the child from spending time in the neighbor-
hood and on the streets because it is unsafe to be there.
Common ground: Both husband and wife have the same expectation for
safety of the child although their behaviors are very different.
Example 2: Your client is a minority person with a physical disability
who does not work as hard as the other employees, even though the disabil-
ity should not interfere with the person's work. How are you going to deter-
mine whether the resulting disagreements between the employee and
coworkers are caused by the cultural differences between them or whether
that person is manipulating the system by using cultural differences as an
excuse? You would need to look beyond the behavior itself to get at the
employee's expectations and values. Whether the employee does more or
less work is perhaps less important than the reason why the employee is
working. Once you have established through contacts with the employee
and other coworkers what the employee's expectations are, it should be
easier to assess whether the employee is using cultural differences to manip-
ulate the system.
Common ground: Look for shared values behind the expectations and
work style to find values that both the employee and the coworkers share.
Example 3: You have been asked to consult with the mental health
clinic of a large university by the International Student Association. The stu-
dent association complained that all foreign students who go to the mental
health clinic are diagnosed as crazy because of their different and unusual
behaviors compared with American students. You work with the therapists
at the mental health clinic and get across the idea that people from different

220 INCLUSIVE CULTURAL EMPATHY

cultures have appropriately different behaviors and are not necessarily crazy.
A month later the International Student Association again asks you to con-
sult with the mental health clinic because now foreign students who urgently
require therapy have been turned away even though their behavior clearly
indicated a need for psychological assistance. The therapists say that the
behavior of foreign students is naturally and appropriately bizarre, and ther-
apy is not required. Your task is to work with the therapists to match appro-
priately and accurately the range of behaviors and expectations with social
system variables.
Common ground: Behavior is not data until and unless it is interpreted
within the context of culturally learned expectations.
Example 4: Two people have come to you for help in mediating their
disagreement before resorting to legal action. They had grown up across the
street from each other and have known each other all their lives. Their back-
grounds are very similar, although one person has become increasingly more
conservative and the other person increasingly more liberal in their lifestyles.
Because they appear to one another as culturally similar, they assume that
they begin with the same assumptions and any disagreement requires one
of them to be wrong.
Common ground: Cultural differences may divide people who perceive
themselves as belonging to the same culture even if they grew up across the
street or in the same family if you define culture broadly as these two people do.
The practical advantage of the interpersonal cultural grid is to increase
a person's ICE and accurate assessment of another person's behavior in the
context of that person's culture. Without reference to these culturally learned
expectations and values, we are unable to interpret accurately any behavior
outside its cultural context. The matching of cultural with personal data pro-
vides a framework for understanding how culture is related to behavior and
suggests specific procedures for culture-centered counseling
If culture is indeed within the person, then constructing a multicultural
identity becomes an essential part of each, person's development. The prac-
tical advantages of the interpersonal cultural grid are that it increases a per-
son's accurate assessment of another person's behavior in the context of that
person's culture. Without reference to these expectations and values, we are
unable to accurately interpret any behavior outside its cultural context. The
matching of cultural with personal data provides a framework for under-
standing how culture works both in the aggregate and in the individual
instance. Culture-centered counselors need to go beyond the obvious labels
used to describe individual and collective cultural identities. Culture-centered
counselors need to recognize multicultural identity as including the synthesis
of many cultures in our lives through complex and dynamic but not chaotic
ways. This understanding of culture will be an important foundation for
developing culture-centered counseling skills in subsequent chapters.

EMPOWERMENT APPLICATIONS 2 21
 CONCLUSION

ICE is not an abstraction but rather a practical application of everything

we know about counseling relationships. ICE applies to all counseling and
human service theories and defines both the cultural context and the coun-
seling methods in broad and inclusive perspectives. ICE applies to all clients
and all counseling relationships, and in this chapter we discuss some of the
practical applications of ICE for counselors and counselor educators.
First, it is necessary to define culture and multiculturalism broadly rather
than narrowly, recognizing that each individual belongs to many different
cultures at the same time and that different cultural identities will be more
salient at different times and in different places. This idea has been presented
as the imagined collectivity of a thousand culture teachers gathered over a
lifetime for each individual and who influence and even control her or his
decisions. Multicultural awareness requires people to be articulate about those
culture teachers they carry in their imaginations.
Second, this chapter examined the process of empowerment through
ICE. By monitoring the client's relationships with others in that client's
multicultural context, it becomes possible to increase the client's power over
time while reducing the client's dependence on the counselor. The counselor
adjusts the amount of power influence figuratively so that the power of the
client plus the power of the counselor is always equal to or slightly greater
than the power of the problem. By following this "counselor path" over time
and adjusting the counselor's influence on the client's multicultural context,
the counseling relationship provides a safe place for the client to take risks
and grow in a positive direction.
Third, whereas conventional counseling has focused on a formal setting
and formal method, ICE takes a more inclusive perspective. In many multi-
cultural contexts, counseling is more appropriately provided through infor-
mal methods and in less formal contexts, according to each situation. By
confining counseling to formal methods and settings exclusively, the coun-
selor is more likely to experience cultural encapsulation.
Fourth, the interpersonal cultural grid is provided as a framework to sep-
arate expectations from behavior in a conflict situation. Cross-cultural con-
flict is defined as a situation in which two people or groups display different
behaviors even though they share the same common-ground expectations.

222 INCLUSIVE CULTURAL EMPATHY