Counseling in African cultural heritage settings: The challenges and opportunities

This chapter integrates and synthesizes many elements of the interdisciplinary discourse, regarding counseling people of African ancestry, that have been offered in the previous chapters. In considering the challenges and opportunities inherent in counseling people of African ancestry, the authors discuss how world view can influence help-seeking predispositions; they detail the necessity of ecoculturally relevant psychological assessments; they emphasize how historical legacies can influence health and well-being; they point to the influences of Western psychology and postcolonial oppression; and, finally, they propose the relevance of community-level counseling interventions with people of African ancestry. The chapter concludes by endorsing the importance of culturally diverse and culturally relevant counseling interventions when working with people of African ancestry.