What is cultural sensitivity? Besides the country of origin, cultural sensitivity includes a subtle approach and awareness towards gender identity, sexual orientation, age, neurodiversity, economical status and belief system. As a humanistic counsellor who is curious about diversity on many levels, I also enjoy helping people who live in London and are from diverse backgrounds.
Understanding cultural sensitivity as a counsellor
I grew up in Lithuania and tried some translating and blogging work after my undergrad studies. I had no plans to move to the UK because I didn’t want to follow everyone who primarily went to the Western Europe to earn money. I thought that I was better, hence I went volunteering and studying in Italy and Denmark instead. Then I met someone and decided to move to the UK, still thinking that it was a better reason than selling myself out – I was so judgemental! And did end up in Basingstoke, working simple, brain not engaging jobs just to get by – I became who I loathed.
I tried to cover up my choices with holidays abroad, unnecessary purchases and other compensating behaviours in social situations but truly I felt empty, unfulfilled, directionless and low-key scared. Fortunately, my first life coach kicked me out of my rut and… I got into another: rat race in London.
I studied humanistic counselling and this allowed me to work towards becoming more curious, empathetic, creative and inclusive of different lifestyles and outlooks. However, the course material was taught in a patriarchal way which didn’t sit well with me because I felt I needed to continue bending my personal values to please the societal structures. Also, my peers were from a privileged background, and although they were welcoming, the context still made me question my position as white but not so white. “You’re white until you open your mouth”, as some professional said it to me. I had options and I could’ve bent to society and tried to soften my accent to fit in but I decided against it as ultimately, I’m proud of my roots. It’s a long journey and I’m still learning from it.
Having grown up in a country with the air of Catholicism and rudiments of the Soviet regime, which to me meant an ingrained sense of shame around sex, guilt and lack, I still believed that my strong work ethic, honesty, being a “good girl” and seeking equality and inclusion would save me from the rat race. I would get hung up on different workplaces’ Mission/Vision statements, worrying my head off to try and please the staff I supervised and the management above me. No surprise that with time I realised that London was a cruel place for idealistic, passionate and quirky individuals and the creatives who I counsel confirm this to me: long work hours to meet KPIs, businesses using inclusion and sustainability policies to avoid accountability, red-tape and politics, which lead my clients to a burnout.
I became deeply disheartened, burnt out and disillusioned. Therefore, as a result, I opened my private counselling and hypnotherapy practice to attract idealistic, practical, passionate, resilient, creative, brave and curious individuals who temporarily forgot who they were so that we could work on self-respect and boundaries. As my journey to self-realisation and fulfilment continues, I help those who are at a similar to mine stage: between healing and towards expanding.
Why is cultural sensitivity important in therapy?
Having a culturally sensitive counsellor/therapist can make a huge difference in your care. In fact, your therapist doesn’t have to be an immigrant to counsel you, because empathic understanding is an emotionally regulating skill in itself. They need to have a desire to be culturally competent or at least be curious. As long as you feel your counsellor’s effort to understand your point and take time for the information to sink in, you made a good choice. How will you feel that “my therapist understands my culture”? It’s because of how accurately they reflect back, summarise and ask follow up questions to understand your stance better.
For your therapist, asking clarifying questions to understand your situation better is what’s going to help identify a path to solution and the more you feel heard, the more you hear yourself. For example, instead of suggesting a visualisation in my practice I inquire if my religious clients pray to their god to gain clarity in their challenges. So, if you found a counsellor who treats you like a priority in their counselling room, acknowledges your differences, your struggles, your perceptions of what happened to you and reminds you how much you advanced, your intuition worked well.
You may be asking yourself: how to identify a culturally sensitive therapist before booking?
- You can look for specific information in their bio: do they identify as culturally sensitive/ competent/ aware?
- Can you discern that they are curious or respectful towards your culture, beliefs and inclinations from the way they describe their practice?
- Then the next step: do ask specific and open-ended questions in the intro call: what is your take on Catholicism? Where did you train or what experience do you have to become an LGBTQ+ aware therapist? What is your understanding of boarding schools’ culture? What experience do you have as a counsellor for women with different backgrounds?
However, you won't truly know if a therapist is truly culturally competent until you have had a few sessions with them, but the questions above can help you make an informed decision.
Common experiences my clients bring to our sessions
There’s a running joke in the therapist’s community: the distance between your country of origin and your current country of residence shows how big your trauma is. It is a curious stance to explore in sessions, isn’t it? Appearing successful on paper but not feeling that you belong or you made it could be a result of various occurrences in your earlier years and not because you attribute it to you being a foreigner. Hence, challenges in your earlier years can be faced and will turn you into a powerhouse wherever you reside.
In my sessions we explore:
- Feeling like you don't fully belong anywhere is a common belief especially among the people from different cultures. You feel like you’re not good enough and possibly cope by overworking, over‑giving, or seeking approval, even when you know you’re easily replaceable. That tension creates a painful internal conflict that fuels stress. It’s even harder if you don’t have a good relationship with your family of origin and the only person who has your back financially is you and you only. In therapy, as you start recognising these patterns, you realise you’re not powerless inside them. That awareness allows you to reframe old beliefs, and with continued practice your brain begins to rewire, helping the sense of not fitting in gradually fade.
- Navigating expectations from your family or culture around relationships, career, or emotions. If you moved away from your family of origin, the underlying message could be: “It’s not good for me here so I’m moving away to create something better elsewhere.” You might face a problem when “the betterment” as expected doesn’t happen. It could be because of a wrong partner choice, economic crisis, a physical or mental illness, etc. The issue is that a life’s update for you has happened but expectation from the past remains the same. It then can cause subtle and obvious obstacles in your personal progress. It’s so useful to detect internal fights like these in our counselling sessions to neutralise them so that you could move on like you always wanted
- Processing grief, identity, or anxiety that has a cultural dimension. This is my favourite subject to detangle because it is so complex! It’s been helpful to get my head around that our life consists of grief cycles, big and small; dissecting them gives that certainty about life people crave for. When you allow yourself to feel denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance and start making meaning out of your life changes, it’ll become easier to navigate your life as an immigrant. It’s because therapy for expat women and people in general results in self exploration, thus, removes limiting beliefs and adds dimensions to your identity on levels you believe you are.
- Being an expat or immigrant and the emotional toll that brings. You might’ve noticed reels on social media where life coaches big the immigrants up by saying: “If you sorted out your immigration documents, got education, succeeded in job interviews, made career, created your own business, got mortgage, defended yourself at work disciplinaries, dodged questionable dates in a language which is not your mother tongue, you rock in life”. Yes, you may agree with all of it, and still something niggles you deep inside. I’d love to help you to figure out what that discomfort is about so that you could move on in life fully embodying what the reel says.
