tructs resembles the broad definition of culture used in this book. Like
personal constructs, culture is within the person, develops as a result of
accumulated learning from a complexity of sources, depends on interaction
with others to define itself, changes to accommodate the experiences in a
changing world, provides a basis for predicting future behavior of self and
others, and becomes the central control point for any and all decisions.

Many of the approaches to skill training have emphasized changing behav-
iors. Culture-centered counseling skills focus on the culturally defined as-
sumptions that shape and direct behaviors.

Person-centered approaches presume that individuals decide and function
independently from their culturally defined context and therefore tend to
neglect the cultural forces that define the person.

Problem-centered approaches presume that if externalized problems can
be solved, the counseling is successful, without recognizing the sometimes
necessary function that "apparent problems" fulfill in a culturally defined
context.

Behavior-centered approaches presume that a person's behaviors consti-
tute data without reference to the cognitive framework used to interpret and
direct those behaviors.

Situation-centered approaches explain the world through transactions and
interactions of collectivities without regard to the individual's cultural iden-
tity aside from any "particular" culture system or group.

Each of these approaches shares an area of overlapping concern, and that is
the concept of "meaning."

Each system explains the world in such a way that people's behavior has
meaning. The culture-centered approach to counseling focuses on cultures as
the teachers of meaning. Culture-centered counseling skills focus on the
culturally learned expectations and values that control behavior and have
been learned through ethnographic, demographic, status, and formal and
informal affiliations accumulated from a lifetime of experiences. Each indi-
vidual's unique combination of shared behaviors, situations, problems, and
systems is a product of the cultures on which this approach is centered.

Skills-based approaches to counseling have been proven to train counsel-
ors perhaps more effectively than any of the alternatives ( Pedersen, 1986).
The culture-centered approach suggests that skill training is focused on the
culturally defined context in which skills must be learned and eventually
applied. This book on culture-centered counseling skills attempts to identify
patterns of interpretation, explanation, and meaning that have explicitly or
implicitly grounded the alternative approaches to understanding human be-
havior. If the book is successful, the reader will recognize and label culturally
learned assumptions in which the person already believed but never articu-
lated. If this book works, readers will find practical insights to understand
their own and others' behavior better. If this book is useful, it will help
identify the construct "culture" as a valuable and underutilized resource to

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