This study explored East-Asian counselling psychologists’ experience of psychology in Canada. Participants included 6 counselling psychologists practicing in Alberta, each with between 3 and 21 years of experience. The cultures of origin for the participants included Hong Kong, China, and Korea. Data was gathered using a semi-structured interview, and dialogic-performative narrative analysis was completed. Four categories emerged: cultural values, personal cultural identity formation, culture in relation to practice, and personal information. Several themes and sub-themes also emerged.
The findings were the first to highlight advantages offered to counselling psychologists of East-Asian descent resulting from experiential knowledge gained through their upbringing. Cultural identification, experiential knowledge, and bilingual language skills were beneficial in work with clients. These findings indicate a need for further exploration into counselling psychologist’s unique cultural identities in their work within a counselling context, and suggest that greater attention to experiential learning components be implemented at the training level.