Psychologist & Supervised Counsellor
Will My Counsellor Understand Me? Why Culture and Identity Matter in Counselling
Will your counsellor really understand where you are coming from? Culture, family, relationships, values and life experiences can all shape how you experience a problem. Psychologist & Supervised Counsellor, Ewelina Sawicka explores why culturally sensitive counselling looks beyond symptoms to understand the whole person.
Starting counselling can bring a mixture of hope and uncertainty. If you're looking for counselling in Singapore, especially when you're living between cultures or far from home, one question can feel particularly important:
Will my counsellor really understand me?
Perhaps you have moved countries and find that the person you have become in Singapore feels different from the person you were back home. Perhaps your family has strong cultural or religious expectations that are difficult to explain to someone outside that world. You may be part of a cross-cultural relationship, be raising children between cultures, or find that different parts of your identity sometimes pull you in different directions.
Or perhaps none of these descriptions quite captures your experience.
That is precisely the point. Good counselling should make room for the complexity of who you are.
Counselling Is About More Than the Problem That Brings You In
People usually come to counselling because something is not going well.
You might be experiencing anxiety, relationship difficulties, parenting stress, low self-esteem, depression, trauma or a major life transition. Naturally, these concerns become an important focus of counselling.
But they do not exist separately from the rest of your life.
Imagine, for example, someone struggling to say no to their parents. Looking only at the behaviour, we might describe this as a difficulty with boundaries.
But what if they grew up in a family where respecting parents was a deeply held value? What if they are now living in another country where independence is valued more strongly? What if their partner sees their family involvement as excessive, while they experience stepping away from family obligations as guilt, disloyalty or even a rejection of an important part of themselves?
Suddenly, “learn to set better boundaries” is not quite enough.
Understanding the person means understanding the context in which the problem developed.
How Culture and Identity Can Shape Mental Health
Psychology sometimes uses the term intersectionality to describe the way different aspects of our identity and social experiences overlap.
Originally introduced by scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality reminds us that people cannot always be understood by looking at one part of their identity in isolation.
In everyday life, this is actually quite simple.
You are not only your nationality. Or your gender. Or your age. Or your profession. Or whether you are a parent, partner, expatriate, local, religious, non-religious, financially secure or struggling.
You are all of these things—and many more—at the same time.
And they interact.
A working mother navigating expectations from her family may experience stress differently from another working mother with a different cultural background or support system.
Someone who relocates for a career opportunity may experience living abroad very differently from someone who moved because of their partner's career.
A person in a cross-cultural relationship may discover that an argument that appears to be about money, parenting or how often to visit family is also connected to deeply held beliefs about responsibility, respect, independence or belonging.
This is why culturally sensitive counselling requires more than knowing someone's nationality or background. It requires understanding what those experiences actually mean to that individual.
Does My Counsellor Need to Share My Cultural Background?
This is an understandable question, particularly when something important to you has previously been misunderstood.
There can certainly be comfort in speaking with a counsellor who shares your language or is familiar with aspects of your culture.
But no counsellor—even one who appears to share your background—can automatically know what your experiences mean to you.
Two people from the same country, religion, generation or cultural community can have very different families, values and life experiences.
Rather than assuming, a culturally responsive counsellor should be willing to be curious.
That can mean asking:
What does this mean to you?
How did your family understand this?
Is this important in your culture, your family—or particularly important to you?
What would changing this mean for your relationships or sense of yourself?
These conversations help your counsellor understand your world through your experience of it, rather than through stereotypes or textbook knowledge.
What Is Cultural Humility in Counselling?
I think this is an important part of counselling.
Counsellors have professional training, psychological knowledge and therapeutic skills. But we are not experts on another person's life simply because we are counsellors.
You remain the expert on your own lived experience.
Cultural humility means recognising the limits of what we know and being willing to continue learning from the person sitting in front of us.
It also means counsellors need to reflect on our own assumptions.
All of us have been shaped by our families, cultures, education and experiences. Counsellors are no exception. Being aware of this helps us become more thoughtful about what we might be assuming is “normal”, “healthy” or “appropriate”.
For clients, this means you should be able to tell your counsellor when something does not quite fit.
You can say:
“That isn't really how it works in my family.”
“I'm not comfortable with that.”
“My culture is important here, but maybe not in the way you think.”
“There is another part of this that I haven't explained yet.”
These are not disruptions to counselling. They can be valuable parts of the therapeutic process.
Counselling Should Be Collaborative
There is inevitably some imbalance in the counselling relationship.
You are sharing personal parts of your life with someone you have approached for professional help. Your counsellor has training and a professional role, and this can make it tempting to assume that the counsellor always knows best.
But effective counselling should be collaborative.
A counsellor may have expertise in psychological processes and therapeutic approaches, while you bring something equally important: knowledge of yourself, your relationships, your history, your values and your life.
Counselling works best when there is room for both.
You should be able to ask questions, disagree, clarify something your counsellor has misunderstood, or talk about something that has made you uncomfortable in a session.
Sometimes, talking about these moments can even strengthen the counselling relationship.
Your Culture Is Not Only a Source of Difficulty
When culture comes up in conversations about mental health, it is easy to focus on problems: cultural conflict, discrimination, family expectations, migration stress or feeling caught between different worlds.
But culture can also be an enormous source of strength.
Family traditions can provide continuity during change. Spiritual beliefs may provide meaning during difficult periods. Community connections can reduce isolation. Cultural values can shape resilience, responsibility, compassion and belonging.
Even experiences that have been difficult can sometimes help people develop flexibility, empathy and the ability to see situations from several perspectives.
Culturally responsive counselling should therefore not be about removing your culture or teaching you to fit somebody else's idea of what a psychologically healthy person should look like.
It is about understanding what matters to you—including the parts of your background and identity that you want to preserve.
When You Feel as Though You Belong to More Than One World
Questions about culture and identity can become particularly noticeable when you live internationally.
Moving countries often changes more than your address.
You may behave differently at work than you do with family back home. Your children may identify with a culture differently from you. A relationship may bring together two sets of expectations about marriage, parenting, money or extended family.
You may even discover that after years abroad, returning “home” no longer feels entirely like home either.
Sometimes people describe feeling caught between worlds.
But counselling does not necessarily have to help you choose one world over another.
It can help you explore which parts of each world matter to you and how you want them to become part of the life you are building now.
What Does Culturally Sensitive Counselling Look Like?
You do not need to arrive at counselling with a clear explanation of your identity.
You do not need to understand intersectionality. You do not need the right psychological terminology. And you certainly do not need to teach your counsellor everything about your culture before counselling can begin.
Instead, these conversations can emerge naturally.
Your counsellor might ask about your family, important relationships, cultural background, migration experiences, beliefs, community, work, values or significant life transitions.
Some of these factors may turn out to be very important.
Others may not.
What matters is that there is enough curiosity and openness to find out.
Bringing Your Whole Self Into Counselling
You do not have to leave parts of yourself outside the counselling room because they seem complicated, difficult to explain or different from your counsellor's experience.
The parts of you that appear contradictory may make sense when we understand where they came from.
You can value independence and still feel deeply responsible for your family.
You can be grateful for the life you have built overseas and still miss home.
You can love your culture while questioning some of its expectations.
You can adapt to a new country without wanting to lose the person you were before you arrived.
There is room for all of this in counselling.
You do not need to have yourself completely figured out before you begin.
Sometimes, understanding how all these different parts of your life fit together is part of the work we do there.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can counselling help with cultural identity issues?
Yes. Counselling can provide a space to explore questions around cultural identity, belonging, family expectations, relationships, relocation and the experience of living between different cultures. The aim is not to tell you which values or identity you should adopt, but to help you understand what matters to you and how different parts of your life fit together.
Does my counsellor need to have the same cultural background as me?
Not necessarily. Shared cultural experience can sometimes be helpful, but people from the same cultural background can still have very different experiences. A counsellor's willingness to listen, ask rather than assume, recognise the limits of their knowledge and understand what your background means specifically to you can be equally important.
What if my counsellor doesn't understand something about my culture?
You can tell them. Clarifying a misunderstanding or explaining that something does not fit your experience can be an important part of counselling. A culturally responsive counsellor should be open to these conversations rather than expecting you to fit their assumptions.
Can I have counselling in Singapore if I am an expatriate?
Yes. People seek counselling for many of the same concerns whether they are local or living abroad, but expatriate life can introduce additional experiences such as relocation, separation from family and established support networks, cultural adjustment, relationship changes and questions about identity and belonging.
About the Author
Ewelina Sawicka is a Psychologist and Supervised Counsellor at The Counselling Place in Singapore. Having experienced relocation herself, she understands both the opportunities and emotional challenges that can come with starting over in another country.
She works with children, teens, adults, couples and families, supporting concerns including anxiety, depression, relationships, parenting, life transitions, self-esteem, trauma and Third Culture Kid adjustment. Ewelina provides counselling in English and Polish.
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Looking for Counselling in Singapore?
At The Counselling Place, our international and multilingual team provides counselling for expatriates and locals from a wide range of cultural backgrounds and life experiences.
We provide in-person counselling in Singapore CBD and online counselling, with support for concerns including relationships, anxiety, depression, trauma, parenting, life transitions, neurodiversity and adjustment to living abroad.
Meet our psychologists and counsellors to find someone whose experience, areas of support and languages suit your needs, or book your first counselling session directly.