Vontress, Clemmont Eyvind (1929-)

Clemmont Eyvind Vontress, American counselor educator and psychologist, is recognized generally as a pioneer in cross-cultural counseling. He first used the [Page 1365]concept of cross-cultural counseling in a speech at the University of Virginia in 1968. He has contributed to the literature on the impact of culture on counseling, existential psychotherapy, and traditional healing in Africa for nearly 5 decades. Early in his career, he focused his attention on problems that Anglo-Americans encountered in counseling Black Americans. After researching the national culture and its subsystems in the United States, Vontress examined how cultural differences affect the entire counseling process, regardless of the client's background. Today, he is considered one of the leading writers on culture and counseling. During the past 2 decades, Vontress has contributed significantly to the literature on traditional healing in Africa and its implications for counseling culturally different clients in the West. Living and learning in a primarily racially segregated society in the first half of the 20th century, he was influenced significantly by the ethos of the civil rights movement in the United States. His strong feelings about human rights and the equality of people were evident in his writings during the latter half of the 20th century. His concerns about counseling Blacks in segregated and integrated school systems culminated in Counseling Negroes, the first book to explore the topic. By the 1970s, race and culture were dominant themes in the counseling field. Vontress was in the forefront of the increasing number of counselor educators who wrote and spoke often at national, state, and local professional conventions about cultural, ethnic, and racial differences as barriers in the counseling enterprise. It was in the late 1970s, 1980s, and the 1990s that Vontress began to explicate existentialism, the philosophy underpinning his personal approach to counseling. In 1979 he outlined his philosophical approach to counseling in the article “Cross-Cultural Counseling: An Existential Approach.” In writing and speaking about how existential philosophy can be used as a therapeutic modality, Vontress established himself in the counseling field as a leading advocate of existential philosophy in counseling in general and cross-cultural counseling in particular. After several research and study trips to West Africa where he met with traditional healers and some of their clients, he began to explain in his writings and discourses how spirituality is necessarily a part of the counseling process. He came to respect the efficacy of traditional healing and viewed African healers as partners in the helping profession and in helping people, especially those in developing countries. Starting in the 1990s, his keen interest in and respect for traditional healing have been reflected in his writings.