The effects of a culture-specific counseling approach based on different construals of the self on counseling effectiveness and preference

Although many studies have looked at cultural differences in the effectiveness of and preference for different counseling approaches, individual differences are still not generally addressed in cross-cultural counseling research. Furthermore, what has been lacking is research on culture-specific counseling skills to help counselors interact with culturally different clients. In order to contribute to an understanding of these aspects of cultural studies, this study attempted to propose culture-specific counseling skills and empirically examine their effects. For the present study, two culture-specific counseling skills were provided based on a literature review of the self and Lee's (1943) Original Nature Actualization model.;These hypotheses were statistically tested by using eighty-two subjects. The results of the Mixed model by SAS demonstrated that there were significant differences in the perceived counselor effectiveness and the session impacts of the two counseling approaches between the Korean and American subjects. At the cultural level, the American subjects perceived the self-focused counseling approach as deeper and smoother and evaluated the counselor as more attractive, expert, and trustworthy. They also preferred the SFCA to the OFCA. The Korean subjects rated the counselor in the other-focused counseling approach as more effective and the session as deeper and smoother and preferred it to the SFCA.;When these results were compared at the individual level by using the higher interdependent self-construal and the higher independent self-construal as subgroups, the perceived effectiveness, the session impacts, and the approach preference were different based on subjects' self-construals except for the smoothness dimension.;The results of this study demonstrate that different cultures can affect the perception of the effectiveness of and preference for different counseling approaches, but individual differences should also be taken into consideration. Several recommendations for counseling practices and further studies were suggested.