Effects of counseling style and client adherence to Asian cultural values on counseling process with Asian American college students

This study investigated the effects of counseling style and client adherence to Asian cultural values on career-focused counseling process with Asian American college students. Fifty-two clients were classified as having either high or low adherence to Asian values and assigned to a counseling session with a European American female counselor, who employed either a directive or a nondirective style. Immediately following the session, clients completed measures of counselor credibility, counselor empathic understanding, client-counselor working alliance, session depth, and counselor cross-cultural counseling competence. Clients in the directive counseling condition rated the counselor as being more empathic and cross-culturally competent, and reported stronger client-counselor working alliance and greater session depth than did those clients in the nondirective condition.