Over the recent decades the increasing number of migration flows has exerted and continues to exert great pressure on the health system and on the welfare structures of Greece. The bases for the development of a rudimentary reception and integration system -that still is in progress have long been delayed, while there has been no happy medium, between the enormous pressure that foreigner users of this system put on, and the humanitarian obligation of a well-governed state towards all residents of the country. The purpose of this article is to capture this situation within the changes that take place due to it, inside the Greek society where there is a great need for professional social workers who are able to work targeted and effectively with foreigners, both children and adults, who have or develop mental health problems for the very first time.

In cross-cultural interview, difficulties often arise, and derive from the fact that, social workers and interviewees come from much different worlds, and some major sub-cultural differences-such as socioeconomic group, race or ethnicity, gender, age and sexual orientation-may differentiate the interviewer from the interviewee, and consequently, increase social distance and limit understanding, between them. The purpose of this article is to point out the meaning of counseling, in social work practice, and in addition to isolate and clarify these differences that may be of crucial importance, on how the interview will be conducted between a social worker and an individual from a different race. During the interview, there is, however, a need for balance, in assessing the importance of these key-identifying characteristics. Despite the great number of books and articles referring to racial and ethnic data collection, social workers, rarely, discuss the explicit relevance of these information, in order to conduct an interview.

This article refers to the intercultural dimension of social work and the main consultative theories, which are very important tools, and on the basis of its perception, as a practice, derived from the multicultural texture of contemporary social reality. A bibliographic review is undertaken, to illustrate the basic dimensions of intercultural counseling, and reach a reasonable assessment of the effectiveness of these theoretical models, in terms of the complex and multifaced needs, that the professional social worker will be required to cover in his daily work.