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Multicultural Notes

The document discusses the importance of multicultural counseling and cultural competence for helping professionals, emphasizing the need for self-awareness, understanding diverse worldviews, and addressing biases. It highlights the implications for clinical practice, including the necessity of adapting counseling approaches to fit the cultural contexts of clients. Additionally, it addresses the sociopolitical aspects of counseling and the impact of systemic oppression on therapeutic relationships.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)

18 views78 pages

Multicultural Notes

Uploaded by

johannambaombimbi

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Multicultural Counseling

The Multicultural
Journey to Cultural
Competence

1
As helping professionals:
 Deal with our own feelings
 Enhance or negate a deeper
understanding of ourselves as
racial/cultural beings ….
 And our understanding of the
worldviews of culturally diverse clients

2
Social Justice
 Equal access and opportunity and
about building a healthy, validating
society for all groups.
 Why cultural competence is so
important as counselors.

3
More that acquiring knowledge of
cultural values and differences…

 Being aware of sociopolitical

experiences
 Empathy, without defensiveness and
anger

4
Implications for clinical Practice
 Listen and be open
 We all have inherited biases
 We must acknowledge them to avoid hurting
our clients
 Requires knowledge and experiences
 We must look inside at our belief systems and
actions
 Accept responsibility for making changes for
social justice

5
The Green Tail
 If someone says you have a green
tail, the person is crazy.
 If two people say you have a green
tail, it is a conspiracy.(A secret plan
by a group to do something unlawful
or harmful)
 If seven people say you have a
green tail, you turn around and look.

6
Small Group Exercise

7
Multicultural Counseling

The Superordinate
Nature of Multicultural
Counseling

8
Cultural Universality versus
Cultural Relativism
Etic – culturally universal

Concepts of normality and abnormality

are considered equally applicable across
cultures

9
Cultural Universality versus
Cultural Relativism
Emic – culturally specific

Concepts of normality and abnormality

are dependent upon lifestyles, cultural
values and worldviews
Affecting the expression and
determination of deviant behavior

10
Both have validity. We must look
at….
 What is relevant to counseling and
therapy.
 What is the relationship between
cultural norms, values, and attitudes
and the manifestation of behavior
disorders and their treatments.

11
The Emotional Consequences of
“Race”
Avoidance or minimization of
Diluting the importance

Discomfort may interfere with ability to

communicate freely and honestly and to
listen to others.
May cause counseling to be ineffective.

12
The Inclusive or Exclusive nature
of multiculturalism
More than race and ethnicity

“Each of us is born into a cultural context

of existing beliefs, values, rules, and
practices”

13
Socialization
The function of the family that occurs
through participation in many cultural
groups.

All reference groups exert a powerful

influence over us and influence our
worldviews.

14
Sociopolitical Nature of
Counseling
 Power and influence
 Euro-American perspective of normality
and abnormality
 Areculture bound
 May be inappropriate to diverse groups

15
Small Group discuss
 Examples in today’s society

16
“Inclusive multicultural counseling
may be more superordinate than the
eurocentric clinical/counseling
competence”.

17
Balancing our understanding of…

 Sociopoliticalforces that dilute the

importance of race and.
 Acknowledging the existence of other
groups identities.

18
Tripartite(consisting of 3 parts) Development of
Personal Identity

Exploring formation of personal identity

Individual Level
Group level
Universal level

A holistic approach demands that we

recognize all three levels.

19
Group identity may also define a
helping relationship.
 Interpretation of reality
 Perspective on the nature of people
 Origin of disorders
 Standards for judging normality and
abnormality
 Therapeutic approaches

20
Defining Multicultural
Counseling/Therapy (MCT)
1. Broadening the role of the counselor to include teaching,
consulting, and advocacy.
2. Using modalities that are consistent with the life experiences
and cultural values of the client.
3. Acknowledgment of individual, group, and universal
dimensions of existence.
4. Using helping strategies that are universal and culture
specific.
5. Balancing individualism and collectivism with respect to
families, relationships, communities, and cultures.
6. Dealing with client insights and behaviors as well as possible
external systems when faced with prejudice, discrimination
and racism, ect.

21
Cultural Competence – Three
Primary Goals

1. Therapist Awareness of One’s Own

Assumptions, Values, and Biases – and
work through the biases, feelings, fears,
and guilt associated with it.

22
Cultural Competence – Three
Primary Goals
[Link] the Worldview of the Culturally
Diverse Clients, without judgment.

Cognitive empathy.
Knowledge of scope and nature of client’s cultural
background, experience, fears, and aspirations.

23
Cultural Competence – Three
Primary Goals

3. Developing Appropriate Intervention Skills,

Strategies, Techniques and Style
 Approaches
 Level of disclosure
 Emotive(rousing emotions) Talk, cognitive
 Inactive, active, directive

24
Cultural Competence – Three
Primary Goals
3. Developing Appropriate Intervention Skills, Strategies, Techniques and Style

‘The interpersonal transactions between the

counselor and client require differential
approaches that are consistent with the person’s
life experiences.’

Involvement in impacting systemic and societal

issues and processes.

25
Cultural Competence – Three
Primary Goals
3. Developing Appropriate Intervention Skills, Strategies, Techniques
and Style

Alternative helping roles

 Systemic intervention
 EX: consultant, change agent, teacher,
advocate

26
Cultural Competence

Case study-group discussion

26
Multidimensional Model of Cultural
Competence (MDCC)
1. Group-Specific Worldviews
2. Components of Cultural Competence
3. Foci of Therapeutic Interventions

27
3. Foci of Therapeutic
Interventions
Focus 1: Individual – Counselors own biases,
prejudices, quality of information may require
changes
Focus 2: Professional – Bias of Counseling
Standards, ethics, world view, culture bound?, may
require changes
Focus 3: Organizational – Bias of Institutional
practices and policies may be targets of change
Focus 4: Social bias, detrimental to the mental and
physical health of minority groups may require
advocacy for change

28
Exercise:
Small group list examples of each.

29
Implications for Clinical Practice
 MCT is inclusive of all types of groups
 Counselors are not immune to bias
 Identify culture-specific and culture-universal norms
 Be careful using Euro-American worldviews and
standards for all MCT (inclusive groups)
 Do not fall into the trap of “good counseling is good
counseling”
 Traditional clinical role may not be enough
 Utilize system interventions

30
Multicultural Counseling

Multicultural Counseling
Competence for Minority Group
Counselors/Therapists

31
 Being a therapist of color does not
automatically denote cultural competence
in working with clients of own or other
colors.

30
Cultural differences between
racial/ethnic groups
 Cultural
values and how they are
expressed by different groups
 Communication style (verbal & Nonverbal)
and how they are displayed

30
Ethnic Identity -stages
 Enculturation
 Acculturation
 Assimilation

 ......powerful forces in the development of

identity

30
Counselors of color / white
clients
 Clients may challenge their credibility
 Counselor may "feel" need to prove
competence
 Counselor may transfer negative feelings to
clients
 Client may unrealistically view therapist as
super minority
 Counselor may have to deal with racist
expressions of client
30
Counselors of color / another
group or own group clients
 Over identification with client
 Encountering clashes with values
 Clashes in communication style &
therapeutic style ( ex: proxemics)
 Receiving animosity because part of
mental health system
 Dealing with stage of racial identity (for
client and counselor )

30
Implications
 List and discuss

30
Multicultural Counseling

The Politics of Counseling and

Psychotherapy

31
Counseling Ethnocentric bias
 White-Eurocentric perspective is "best"
 Minorities are inherently pathological
 Therapy involves a simple modification of
traditional Euro-Centric models.
 Can be dangerous for minority groups

38
Cultural Universality versus
Cultural Relativism
Etic – culturally universal

Concepts of normality and abnormality

are considered equally applicable across
cultures

9
Cultural Universality versus
Cultural Relativism
Emic – culturally specific

Concepts of normality and abnormality

are dependent upon lifestyles, cultural
values and worldviews
Affecting the expression and
determination of deviant behavior

10
Cultural encapsulation(the act of
action of enclosing something in
or. as if in capsule

 Substitution of modal stereotypes(a widely
held but fixed and over simplified
image/idea for a particular type of person
or thing) for the real world
 Disregarding cultural variations
 Rigid counselor roles and concepts of
normality
39
Normality and abnormality
 Insight
 Disclosure
 Emotions
 Autonomy
 Competence
 Stress
 Diagnosis and treatment
 Labeling
 Psychological inventories

41
Historical Models
1. Genetically Deficient Model
 “People of color are inferior”
2. Culturally Deficient Model
 Environment perpetuated view of being culturally
disadvantaged, deficient or deprived
 Lacking of culture
3. Culturally Diverse Model
 Recognizing the legitimacy of alternative lifestyles, the
advantages of being bicultural and value of
differences

42
Social Justice counseling
 Equal access and opportunity and
about building a healthy, validating
society for all groups.
 Browsing the role of helpers (advocate,
consultant, psychoeducator, community
worker, chance agent)

3
Implications for Clinical Practice
 Confronting political issues of mental health practice
 Challenge training programs with what constitutes
normality
 Equal treatment and fair portrayal on all levels of
education
 Responsible research
 Balance our study by focusing on the positive
attributes and characteristics of ethnic minorities

45
Multicultural Counseling

Systemic Oppression

46
Past and present discrimination

 Is a tangible basis for minority distrust

of the majority society
 Counselors may be proposing alien
value systems and rejecting their own
 Client perceptions of counselor as part
of establishment

47
Institutional Racism

 Created psychological barriers (for

minorities and whites) ....
 That may interfere with therapy.

47
Ethnocentric Monoculturalism
 Ethnocentric- evaluating other cultures
according to pre-conceptions
originating in the standards and
customs of one’s culture.
 Monoculturalism- Is the policy or
process of supporting and advocating
or allowing the expression of the
culture of a single social or ethnic
group.
47
Ethnocentric Monoculturalism

 Belief in superiority (values, characteristics,

norms, history, language)
 Belief in others inferiority (less intelligent, less
qualified, undesirable traits)
 Power to impose standards (economic, social,
political,.... Of the majority)
 Manifestation in institutions ( programs, policies,
practices)
 The assumption of a shared reality ( invisible veil)

47
Institutional Racism

 Setof policies, priorities, accepted

normative patterns designed to
subjugate, oppress, and force
dependence of individuals and groups
on larger society.

47
Cultural paranoia
 Suspicious,
mistrustful & paranoid
 May be adaptive and healthy
 Paranorm due to oppression

40
Client Reactions
 Anxiety
 Suspicion
 Apprehension
 Verbal constriction
 Open resentment
 Hostility
 Pass or cool behavior
 Self-disclosure may be delayed

48
Therapist Credibility
Characteristics that make counselor
appear
 Worthy of belief
 Capable
 Entitled to confidence
 Reliable

50
Expertness
 Reputation and Evidence of specialized
training (may not be enhance expertness)
 Testimony from minority group is valuable
 Proficient/competent behavior may be most
valuable
 Utilizingappropriate counseling skills and
strategies are crucial
 Attitude of therapist may be most important
 Genuineness, love, unconditional acceptance and
positive regard

51
Trustworthy
 Sincerity,openness, honesty perceived
lack of motivation for personal gain.
 Self-disclosure is dependent on
perceived trustworthiness
 Testing and looking for defensiveness
from the client

52
Understanding Individual and
Systemic Worldviews
 Locus of Control
 External
 Internal
 Locus of Responsibility

25
EC – External Control
 People’s beliefs that reinforcing events occur
independently of their actions and that the future is
determined more by chance and luck
 Hi EC…Often ethnic groups, lower socioeconomic
classes and women
 Hi EC… may constitute a realistic sociopolitical
presence of influence from powerful others
 Also may include chance or luck

26
Powerlessness
 The expectancy that a person’s
behavior cannot determine the
outcomes or reinforcements that he or
she seeks.
 Realistic discrepancy between ability
and attainment.
 Making it a negative force for motivation

27
Hi Externality
 May be motivationally healthy if it
results from assessing one’s chances
for success rather than unpredictable
fate.

28
IC – Internal Control
 People’sbeliefs that reinforcements are
contingent on their own actions and that
they can shape their own fate

29
Locus of Responsibility
 Thedegree of responsibility or blame
placed on the individual
(Personal inadequacies and shortcomings)
 or the system
(Discrimination or lack of opportunities)

30
Locus of Control

Internal Control