Examples Of Ethical Issues In Multicultural Counseling

Ethical Issues in Multicultural Counseling are very prevalent today. Counselors may or may not know how to counsel people of different race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity socioeconomic status, disability, age or spirituality. Due to their lack of knowledge in that area, ethical issues may arise. In order for a counselor to gain knowledge of Multicultural Counseling, the counselor must begin to gain an understanding of their clients past and culture. It is also important that the counselor does not categorize the client based his/her race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity socioeconomic status, disability, age and spirituality. The counselor also must consider and respect the client’s culture, when trying to comprise the client’s treatment

According to delval.edu “multicultural counseling is defined as what occurs when the professional counselor works with a client from a different cultural group and how that might affect interactions that take place within the counseling relationship. This definition is expanded to include dissimilarities in religion and spirituality, sexual orientation, gender, age and maturity, socioeconomic class, family history, and even geographic location. The first step in effective multicultural counseling is to identify and acknowledge these differences between the counselor and client”

The assertion has appeared repeatedly in the literature that it is unethical for counselors to provide clinical services to clients who are culturally different from themselves if the counselors are not competent to work effectively with these clients (e.g., Corey, Corey, & Callanan, 2003; Herlihy & Watson, 2003; Lee, 2002; Pedersen, Draguns, Lonner, & Trimble, 2002; Remley & Herlihy, 2005; Vontress, 2002). Historically, however, counselors have been slow to recognize a connection between multicultural competence and ethical behavior. Multiculturalism and ethical standards both emerged during the 1960s as separate strands of development within the counseling profession. Multicultural counseling evolved from a growing awareness that discrepancies between counselor and client were resulting in ineffective service delivery and early termination of treatment for ethnic minority clients (Atkinson, Morton, & Sue, 1998” (p.99). Prior to this form of counseling, counseling was most effective for Caucasians. However, as time pasted and theories for minorities improved the code of ethics began to improve as