Counseling Uzbek-speaking clients; kak deela-siz?
Counseling Uzbek-speaking clients and others from the ex-Soviet Central Asian region is not something I planned for when I started my career in the mental health and social services arena more than twenty years ago. However, this is the work that I have primarily been doing for the past twelve years - and I thoroughly enjoy it, even in the moments of therapeutic-cultural impasse. I am not an ethnic Uzbek. I have, however, traveled extensively throughout Central Asia on more than one occasion and had the opportunity to learn the Uzbek language to a functional degree, along with other languages of Central Asia including Tajik, Judaic Bukhori, Afghan Dari, and some Turkmen. As a good social worker, I was repeatedly taught to "meet the client where the client is at." To this day, that is still a mantra in most graduate social work schools and departments. If you want to be able to meet Central Asian clients in their psycho-social environ, you have to be willin...