Volume 5 Number 1
October 1965

Alonzo Spang

It is the thesis of this paper that a counselor’s philosophy of counseling and use of scientific techniques must undergo some modifications when counseling with Indian students.

Before embarking upon this aspect of counseling, I feel it is necessary to clarify what is meant by Indian and to make a brief comparison of the cultural values of the Indian and non-Indian. I feel that the differences between these cultures have a direct effect on the counseling philosophy and approach of a counselor.

The Indian group that I am referring to is one that is reservation oriented—these are people born and raised on the reservation; they have minimal contact with non-Indians; reality to them is the everyday routine, conditions and interactions on the reservation proper; and, the educational level of these people is extremely low. The reservation-oriented Indian is not concerned, as he should be, with world, national, state, or county events. His sole thoughts are mainly of day-to-day survival. The unemployment rate on reservations is fantastically high, usually around 80 to 85 per cent. Consequently, most of these Indians are on direct relief from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Finally, the value system of the Indian is so different from that of the non-Indian that to do an effective job of counseling one must become conversant with it. The Indian places great emphasis on the following values:

Present Oriented—He lives in the present, living for today, and is not concerned about what tomorrow will bring or holds forth.

Lack of Time Consciousness—Many of the tribes have no word or concept for time. There is no need to be punctual or on time because there is always lots of time. There is no rush to get to a meeting, if one makes it on time, fine. If not, fine: there will always be time to get things accomplished if it is not done today.

Giving—The Indian is not concerned with saving or building a "nest egg" for future use. In the Indian culture, the person who is respected is the one who gives the most. Thus, the person who tries to accumulate goods is often feared or rejected by the other members of the tribe

Respect for Age—Respect increases with age and the tried and trusted leader is usually an older person. Youth is often a handicap, with young educated Indian leaders frequently complaining that they are not given the positions of leadership that they feel they are qualified to hold.

Cooperation—Indians place value on working together, sharing and cooperating. Thus, the Indian tends to be non-competitive as a result of holding this value of cooperation. Failure to reach selected objectives is felt to result from failure to cooperate.

Harmony with Nature—The Indian believes in living in harmony with nature. He accepts the world and does not try to change it. If it fails to rain or the crops fail to grow, it is, he believes, because the necessary harmony has been destroyed. Whenever harmony is restored, nature will respond.

Now, to contrast the values that Indians revere, the following values are generally held by the dominant non-Indian culture:

Future Oriented—Rarely satisfied with the present. The non-Indian is constantly looking to the future.

Time Consciousness—The non-Indian’s waking hours are governed entirely by time. He lives a closely scheduled life; a certain amount of time devoted to each activity. One who is prompt is respected and one who is late will usually be rejected.

Saving—The non-Indian saves today for a better tomorrow. He holds back a part of his wealth so he can develop more things. He stresses the importance of saving for any emergencies, retirement, etc.

Emphasis on Youth—The non-Indian society places great importance on youth. Youthful leaders are looked upon with respect and are recognized as having leadership ability.

Competition—The non-Indian believes competition is essential, if not universal. Progress results from competition and lack of progress may be synonymous with lack of competition. Every aspect of daily living in the non-Indian culture is quite competitive.

Conquest over Nature—The non-Indian society attempts to control the physical world, to assert mastery over it. The more nature is controlled the better.

Thus, these are some of the factors that a counselor must be cognizant of when he or she is counseling reservation-oriented Indians. Indians who have been acculturated or assimilated have primarily the same problems as other non-Indians. Consequently, the above values would not be applicable to this group as a whole.

I believe that a counselor, at first, would have an extremely difficult time accepting Indian counselees to the same degree lie does non-Indian counselees. The majority of Indian counselees will enter the counseling relationship with an appearance of hostility, complete rejection of the counselor, passivity, and being physically ill-kept. It is hard for me to comprehend a product of an average Anglo-Saxon home to be fully accepting of counselees of this nature, initially.

Once the counselor makes the adjustment to these outward signs and physical conditions of the counselee, another important factor enters the relationship. That is, the Indian child is taught not to trust the white man. This principle, or belief, is drilled into the minds of these children in various and sundry ways as they are growing up. This would be the hurdle that would stand in the way of establishing a mutually warm and accepting relationship. (How this can be overcome, I do not know. I do know that it would be a long process of education, and I doubt if it could be realized within one generation.)

The counselor must be ever mindful or aware of the unique value system of the Indian counselee in the counseling relationship. The counselor can not, and should not, impose his value system upon the Indian student. This will only build another barrier, at the least, between the two or it could be the reason for a counselee to discontinue counseling altogether. When this happens the counselor will find that others will discontinue counseling also.

In view of the Indian’s value system, I should like to pose several questions which need to be answered. How does one encourage an Indian student to become competitive when it is not in his value system to be so? How does the counselor approach the problem of an Indian student who is failing because he does not compete but has the ability to do better? What does a counselor do to instill in the minds of Indian students to want to aspire to higher level occupations? And, how does one encourage a student to seek medical help when he believes in "medicine men"? We could go on and on with questions of this type. They are extremely difficult to answer but they must be answered if the Indian is to progress as a race.

The counselor’s use of techniques, primarily tests, would have to be modified when used with Indian counselees. Tests and instruments that have been validated on norms from another culture are not applicable "blanketly" to Indian children. It then behooves the counselor to modify the tests he plans to use, or to establish his own norms, or to construct his own tests and instruments. We have found that even the simplest tests prove to be unreliable when used to test Indian students. Such test items referring to elevators, streetcars, or use of idioms are completely worthless and do not really measure what the Indian student knows. Too, the Indian students are generally very poor readers. Thus, tests requiring them to do much reading further handicaps them. Finally, the Indian languages do not contain many of the concepts that the English language has.

Also, the use of projective techniques must be modified and changed. Some of the responses given to the various items seem quite bizarre when interpreted in the non-Indian cultural orientation. However, when they are interpreted in light of their cultural orientation they become more meaningful and "normal." Thus, a counselor who has been trained to work with non-Indian counselees must, and has to, make modifications and changes in order to do a truly acceptable job of counseling with Indian students.

I have tried, briefly, to present the type of client a counselor on a reservation would be working with. It is not a very cheerful picture but that is what exists on our reservations today, and the factors we must be cognizant of when working with this type of people. You can see that the counselor’s tasks are clearly laid out for him but the problem lies in how to best cope with them.

These people are not concerned with psychological interpretations or hocus-pocus, rather they are concerned with survival in its raw form. They could care less what could happen four years from now if they began to change or to do this thing today. They are not concerned with tomorrow.

Finally, I tried to show that a counselor of Indian students needs to modify and change his philosophy and approach to counseling because of the unique people he is dealing with. This is not to say that a counselor is working for different ends; I feel that Indian counselees need to gain insight and self-realization just as non-Indian counselees do. However, the counselor’s job is to modify his knowledge to bring about the best results possible.