Rating: 
Summary: Two authors who need counseling
Review: 1. Being cited often is simply a perpetuation of several logical fallacies, the most egregious being argumentam ad populum.
2. The work appears to be little better than a defective, biased polemic.
3. I am white nordic. I guarantee you my cultural ancestry is not the same as white Italian or white Greek (like my wife).
4. The only reason this book was cited so often is because for many years it was the only volume discussing the topic. Only-ness doesn't make it good.
5. The 4-5 ethnicities in my wife's multi-cultural counseling class found the book to be extremely argumentative. The only benefit was arguing about which culture was most mis-represented.
6. Good counselors are there to help not to impose their agendas on their clients.
Rating: 
Summary: Therapy, finally, beginning to reach the rest of the world..
Review: An amazing textbook that you can read with interest from cover to cover, Counseling the Culturally Different (and it's updated version, Counseling the Culturally Diverse) will provide a basis for understanding how to reach out and provide effective therapy to those outside the European-American milieu. I've often complained to my brother Kent, a therapist, that so much of modern therapy is focused on European-American culture, and I find it difficult to relate to or come to understanding in my own therapy, as I come from a kinship society. Then I came upon this class, Counseling in Cross-Cultural Situations, in order to prepare for future counseling possibilities in Morocco, and read this book. Too often therapy, for all it's benefits, is focused on one specific culture, and especially on the American psyche. Sue & Sue look at how one deals with other cultures, with many great short case studies that help the imagination as one contemplates therapeutic possibilities. Some of what they look at are shame vs. guilt cultures- how do you work with someone from a shame culture to instill in them a healthy sense of shame? Such an approach would of course be detrimental to someone from a guilt culture, like the U.S.- but it's equally detrimental to *not* pursue shame when working with a shame culture. Or how do you deal with someone coming from a culture where the group is more important than the individual? Modern psychotherapy which focuses on making one more of an individual needs to be substantially remodeled for this group, for making someone from a kinship society an individual only harms them. Not only does this book help me to better understand my own therapy process; it has given me invaluable tools for future counseling possibilities when working with those in the 2/3rds world. Sue & Sue look at different specific populations as well- African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Native-Americans, the elderly, and the handicapped. They provide invaluable processi by which every group can come to learn to appreciate the wider society that they're in, and how they can learn to adapt to the wider culture while fully appreciating their own. The one flaw I'd find in this edition- Sue & Sue's take on European-American psychological progression is only looking at coming to a place of understanding other cultures; there is no part there for learning to appreciate one's own (European-American) heritage, as there is for the other ethnic groups. I'd highly recommend Augsburger's Pastoral Counseling Across Cultures as well- though a very thick and detailed book, it adds much more meat to the backbone of Sue & Sue. And B.J. Prashantham's Indian Case Studies in Therapeutic Counseling gives very basic ideas for those who don't have much background in therapy. B.J. uses his own experiences as an Indian therapist, relating to those within his culture or other cultures in India, providing a very emic perspective on these questions.
Rating:
Summary: Garbage Pure Garbage
Review: Counseling the Culturally Different by Derald Wing Sue, and David Sue is a mishmash of self contradictory drivel that teeters between the ludicrous and the absurd. Day seems to say: 1.Third world people have no problems but are sent against their will to counselors that wrongfully try to force them to change. In reality all people have problems from time to time and if a person is to solve their problems then change is necessary. 2.Counseling is nothing other then encouraging insight. In reality counseling involves any number of tactics not just insight. The first 5 tactics in order of importance are taking effective action, changing one's ideas, changing one's beliefs, changing one's attitude, and encouraging insight. 3.Counseling is nothing but an endorsement of Western European Cultural Values. Actually counseling is based on the scientific method. The scientific method is based on an idea borrowed from Islamic Culture and that idea is one makes a plan based on reason, then the plan executed, then the results are evaluated and the plan is modified based on the results. Moreover the ideas in counseling are strongly at odds with European cultural values. The best example of the difference between European values and those valued in counseling, is counseling condemns repressing feelings while European values endorses repressing feelings. 4.Counseling is judgmental, is opposed to learning about the client and is opposed to listening to clients. According to basic counseling theory everything that Day recommends that counselors do with culturally different clients should be done with every and all clients. Day is lying about counseling when he claims that counseling is judgmental and is against communication. 5.Day claims that counseling has nothing to offer third world people and then blames counseling for failing them by not trying harder to help them. If counseling has nothing to offer third world people then it can't help them no matter what it does.
Rating:
Summary: K-mart book
Review: Do me a favor, buy this book and then burn it. This book contained some of the stupidest things I have ever read, and I am today stupider for having read it.
Rating:
Summary: Biased Sue
Review: I have read this book in my Cultural Diversity class. This text does have some extremely interesting & helpful information. The horrible thing is that if you are White, you are automatically a racist among other things. Certainly there has been horrible happenings even from our founding fathers BUT the book clearly has that same ancient mindset. This book should be more open-minded in its own right and treat the "White" culture as equally as all other cultures. As a Hispanic-American, the book was offensive even to me. Instead of studying about different cultures and maybe even becoming more acculturated, all this book did was try to get me to dislike "White" people.
Rating:
Summary: A Biased Look at Bias in America
Review: I must add my disappointment to many others who have already posted here. This book is required reading in my masters in counseling course, and I was hoping for something that would provide valuable guidelines to reach across cultures in counseling. Unfortunately, Sue & Sue make it quite clear that the only reaching across cultures to be done is by White Americans. Whites are painted as being responsible for all bias in our country while non-Whites are to be held responsible for nothing. Period.
Just because these two authors (or any authors, for that matter) are considered the experts in their field does not mean they are necessarily correct. It is impossible for any human being to approach any subject without bias, yet overall Sue & Sue hold only Whites accountable for recognizing and correcting their biases. At the same time the authors' own bias paints Whites with the same broad stroke they so hate when Whites apply it to minorities.
In a day and time when race relations could have an unprecedented opportunity for improvement, Drs. Sue & Sue promote an insidious bias against Whites. Their book does nothing to move us forward. In fact, it might just set us back about 150 years.
Rating:
Summary: All counselors and therapists need to read this book.
Review: I understand why some people find this book challenging. It is a clearly different way to think about the counseling and therapy field. Nonetheless.... 1. Derald Wing Sue is the most cited multicultural authority in the world. 2. The book reads easily and students like it. I have used it as a text many times. 3. At times, the book is demanding. It attacks our stereotypes. The easy way to deal with this book is to say that it stereotypes itself. Read the book again. It is open and offers multiple ways to think. You and your students will face a challenge, but this is one of those important books that are making an impression in the world. In short, this is a classic! Buy it!
Rating:
Summary: Racist textbook.
Review: I was shocked, deeply saddened and angered to read this book. It's like stepping into the past or onto another planet. Be aware if you are required to read this book for a class. When you read the chapter on White Racial Identity, take note that they refer to whites as White Folks. It's weird, no other ethnic identity is labeled this way. But even more so, the lastest edition basically implies that if you are white, you are racist. I am liberal in my politics but it would take a fool not get the gist of the undercurrent of what is being said here. The chapter itself is even taken from a work in progress by Sue & Sue entitled "You Are a Racist". And they don't mind imposing the very identity crisis or conflict on whites that they admonish absolutelly against doing to other minorities or biracial persons.
For example from page 240:
"First, it is clear that most White folks perceive themselves as unbiased individuals who do not harbor racist thoughts and feelings; they see themselves as working toward social justice and possess a conscious desire to better the life circumstances of those less fortunate than they. While admirable qualitites, this self-image serves as a major barrier to recognizing and taking responsibility for admitting and dealig with one's own prejudices and biases. To admit to being racist, sexist, or homophobic requires people to recognize that the self-images that they hold so dear are based on fase notions of the self"
Huh?? Talk about a double bind! Furthermore, on page 239, they state: "...many White Americans would be hard pressed to describe their Irish, Italian, German, or Norwegian heritage in any but the most superficial manner."
What a slap in the face!! What a step backwards!! Sue and Sue need to look in the mirror at their own arrogance, prejudices and biases. Even more so, they need to take a deep long look at their own racism. It bleeds through the paragraphs of this chapter for all to see whom have the courage to take off the blinders of being brain-washed by this hateful ideology. Even more so, universities and colleges should be ashamed to require this piece for multicultural studies.
Rating:
Summary: Racist textbook.
Review: I was shocked, deeply saddened and angered to read this book. It's like stepping into the past or onto another planet. Be aware if you are required to read this book for a class. When you read the chapter on White Racial Identity, take note that they refer to whites as White Folks. It's weird, no other ethnic identity is labeled this way. But even more so, the lastest edition basically implies that if you are white, you are racist. I am liberal in my politics but it would take a fool not get the gist of the undercurrent of what is being said here. The chapter itself is even taken from a work in progress by Sue & Sue entitled "You Are a Racist". And they don't mind imposing the very identity crisis or conflict on whites that they admonish absolutelly against doing to other minorities or biracial persons.
For example from page 240:
"First, it is clear that most White folks perceive themselves as unbiased individuals who do not harbor racist thoughts and feelings; they see themselves as working toward social justice and possess a conscious desire to better the life circumstances of those less fortunate than they. While admirable qualitites, this self-image serves as a major barrier to recognizing and taking responsibility for admitting and dealig with one's own prejudices and biases. To admit to being racist, sexist, or homophobic requires people to recognize that the self-images that they hold so dear are based on fase notions of the self"
Huh?? Talk about a double bind! Furthermore, on page 239, they state: "...many White Americans would be hard pressed to describe their Irish, Italian, German, or Norwegian heritage in any but the most superficial manner."
What a slap in the face!! What a step backwards!! Sue and Sue need to look in the mirror at their own arrogance, prejudices and biases. Even more so, they need to take a deep long look at their own racism. It bleeds through the paragraphs of this chapter for all to see whom have the courage to take off the blinders of being brain-washed by this hateful ideology. Even more so, universities and colleges should be ashamed to require this piece for multicultural studies.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible, Putrid, Please don't waste the trees!
Review: Playboy magazine comes closer to being a scientific journal than Sue's book. It is awful. The most biased work I've ever read. They actually criticized anyone condemning a broken home as being a "white standard" and they also criticized any counselor that encouraged their clients to try to change THEMSELVES rather than looking at society. Who are they counseling??? Also - all the stats and quotes they use to point out shocking racist biases (and they are shocking)are dated between 1960-1970. The current information they quote only comes from themselves. This book was obviously written by people with an agenda and is a waste of time and paper. The benefits of this books can be summed up in about two sentences: Remember that everyone else is not exactly like you and when you do find yourself uncomfortable with differences please look at yourself and your biases first. There. Now you don't have to buy the book!
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