This book is primarily designed for use as a basic textbook for introductory guidance and counseling courses, teacher training and other areas of human service education. The book provides clear, concise, easily accessible overviews of major concepts and practices of some of the main theoretical approaches influencing human service providers. All people who counsel operate from theoretical frameworks about how clients become the way they are, how they maintain their problems, and how they can be helped to change.

Part one represents an overview of counseling and discusses some general principle that can be applied in working with the reality of cultural diversity. It includes perspectives on multiculturalism, on the need for a multicultural focus in counseling Eritreans and general guidelines for counselors serving the Eritrean client.

Part two examines the most widely used counseling theoretical approaches. The chapters have been written to reflect the contextual factors in applying theoretical applications with the Eritrean client. The necessity for flexibility and a willingness to adapt techniques to fit the client's cultural background is emphasized in each chapter.

Part three illustrates how practitioners of different orientations would view a particular client. It concludes with a model of culturally sensitive counseling intervention with Eritrean youth clients. It illustrates an integrated eclectic model of counseling which combines concepts and techniques from all approaches that have been examined and which should help students attempt their own personal integration.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Belainesh Araya holds a Ph.D. in Counseling and Development from the American University, Washington DC and is a certified counselor in the State of Maryland. She specializes in cross cultural counseling and has over twenty years of teaching, counseling and consulting experiences internationally. For the past five years she has been the dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Asmara, Eritrea.

CATEGORY
Psychology, Counseling, Social Studies/AFRICA