Professional counseling relationships between the counselor and client starts with an intake interview. The intake process can occur in a variety of settings such as a hospital, private practice, or mental health facility. Clients that seek our help have come from various backgrounds and cultures. They have taken a pivotal step and should be treated accordingly. Creating a cultured centering environment helps break down stereotypical behaviors, reduce drop out rates, and provide a client-counselor learning opportunity. This paper demonstrates the need to input a culture centered counseling techniques, modification of micro counseling skills, applying therapeutic techniques and treatment outcomes as it relates to the Asian and Latin American cultures.
Culture centered counseling means that we put the patient first. A counselor needs to understand their problems from their point of view. Research conducted by Dr. Pederson defined the culture centered therapy by “assumes that cultural factors complicate counseling but, in a positive way, and that behaviors have no meaning until they are understood in the cultural context” (Pederson, page 1).
In a session, a counselor should explore the client’s context, focus on patterns and themes, and reflect on culturally mediated meanings (Pederson, page 2). A counselor should listen to the client and avoid stereotypes. In addition to explore the client’s context, we also need to monitor our own verbal and nonverbal expressions. These expressions are known as micro counseling skills.
There are three different micro counseling skills. A counselor needs to be aware of their verbal and non verbal expressions. For instance, eye contact, tone, and posture need to match the message...
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...developing a treatment plan would be 3.0. Because of my lack of skills and knowledge in the field I would acquire additional training. My fear is to develop a plan for a client that was not attainable. As a result, it would
hurt the client’s feelings. My own personal philosophy has always been “suck it up cupcake and keep going”. Not everyone lives by that notion and it’s harmful for me to impose that one another individual.
Works Cited
Day, M. (2009). Adapting Counseling Skills for Multi Cultural and Diverse Clients.
Retrieved from: http://counselingoutfitters.com
Pederson, P. (2007). Culture Centered Counseling.
Retrieved from: http://www.apa.org/pubs/videos/4310778.aspx
Vontress, C. (2003). Culture and Counseling.
Retrieved from: http://orpc.iaccp.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=102%3Avontress&catid=29%3Achapter&Itemid=4
Counselors today face the task of how to appropriately counsel multicultural clients. Being sensitive to cultural variables can be conceptualized as holding a cultural lens to human behavior and making allowances for the possibility of cultural influence. However, to avoid stereotyping, it is important that the clinician recognizes the existence of within-group differences as well as the influence of the client’s own personal culture and values (Furman, Negi, Iwamoto, Shukraft, & Gragg, 2009). One’s background is not always black or white, and a counselor needs to be able to discern and adjust one’s treatment plan according to their client. One of the fastest growing populations in America is the Hispanic or Latino population.
The theoretical approach used to research the use of interpreters in counseling was a culturally grounded approach. According to Marsiglia and Kulis (2009) a culturally grounded approach embraces diversity and multiculturalism and also promotes a change that improves an individual or a group’s quality of life (p. 102-103). Farooq and Fear (2003) state that counseling is a social service that has been shown to need a culturally competent staff and the use of a culturally competent staff improves the quality of service the client receives. Social services are not always culturally competent (Marsiglia & Kulis, 2009). A culturally grounded approach in the research of the use of interpreters in counseling looks at how interpreters improve counseling service provided to clients who either speak English as a second language or do not speak English. The use of a culturally grounded a...
The idea is to do so by expressing a willingness to learn more about, and showing respect for the client’s worldview, belief systems, and means of problem-solving while remaining empathetic to their emotional journey. Discovering and addressing the client’s personal stories and realities will enable the counselor to establish culturally appropriate interventions.
Culture has a huge influence on how people view and deal with psychological disorders. Being able to successfully treat someone for a mental illness has largely to do with what they view as normal in their own culture. In Western cultures we think that going to a counselor to talk about our emotions or our individual problems and/or getting some type of drug to help with our mental illness is the best way to overcome and treat it, but in other cultures that may not be the case. In particular Western and Asian cultures vary in the way they deal with psychological disorders. In this paper I am going to discuss how Asian cultures and Western cultures are similar and different in the way they view psychological disorders, the treatments and likelihood of getting treatment, culture bound disorders, and how to overcome the differences in the cultures for optimal treatments.
When working with clients of diverse background and cultures, it is important for counselors to be conscious of this fact during assessment and subsequent counseling. Due to fact that much of Western psychology and counseling theories and approaches stem from a White, European viewpoint, experiences and symptoms of marginalized groups are also evaluated by this same perspective (Sue & Sue, 2016). Furthermore, Hays (2015) stated, “psychological assessment involves standardized procedures that have been developed and shaped by dominant culture, which largely ignores or dismisses cultural influences. As a result, cultural questions and consideration are commonly left out,” (p. 128).
So your opinions on the topic may or may not help out the situation and also in some unfortunate cases can send the client into a ‘downward spiral’. By expressing your ethical issues on the topic to your client you may trigger unwanted emotions. These unwanted emotions can drive the client to hurt themselves or even make the client take legal actions towards the counselor. Ways to prevent this from happening is learning your own self-control and what your limits are when its comes to dealing the client. “You want to consider the best action that will protect your client’s needs, but you also want to ask yourself: What is the best action to protect the profession and myself? (Berton, J. D. (2014). Make the Rule to Break the Rule: Setting Your Ethical Standards. Counselor: The Magazine For Addiction Professionals, 15(5), 10-12
The essay then outlines and critically evaluates counselling skills such as body language, silences and reflective communication skills amongst others used during Eric’s third session while highlighting areas of improvement and identifying alternative options. The essay concludes with offering and exploring possible directions for future counselling sessions.
Smith, T. B., Rodríguez, M. D., & Bernal, G. (2011). Culture. In J. C. Norcross (Ed.), Psychotherapy relationships that work (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
One must have attending behaviors this includes eye contact, attentive listening, body posture, overall empathy and warmth. In order to be a successful counselor when using the ABC model, it is important to have knowledge of cultural sensitivity (Kanel, 2007). According to Kanel crisis workers must remember that the attending behavior of different cultural and ethnic groups may vary in style, and as a clinician one may need to adapt when working with certain cultures (Kanel, 2007). Another important skill a clinician must possess is the skill ask questions properly without seeming judgmental. Most often in this model, it is important to use open ended questions in order to learn more information about the precipitating event. Questions beginning with “what” or “how” are most effective in this case. The ability to paraphrase is also important, which is the clinician’s ability to restate what they thought they heard in their own words or clarify what was said in a questioning manner. When this is done properly, the client knows that the counselor is listening and it helps build good rapport. Reflection of feelings is another technique to let the client know the counselor is listening, as well as summarization (Kanel,
...ing silence, paraphrasing and reflection of feelings, as well as non-verbal skills such as body-language and active listening are all used in order to allow the client to introspect and work with their problems in a safe environment, the role of the counselor within the relationship being to support the client and help them to reach their true potential by expressing emotions and thoughts that they can’t express outside of the helping relationship, whether it be for fear of rejection or some other reason.
A diversity perspective is something that you take into major consideration when you counsel a client. In person-centered therapy the first major limitation to this multicultural populations is for people who are in mental health clinics may way a different type of treatment. They may want something more structured to help them resolve their emotional problems, and want to learn certain coping skills to deal with everyday problems. In person-centered counseling this may not be the best type of therapy in this type of situation. The second reason there might be some limitations is because it could be difficult to translate the core therapeutic conditions into an actual practice with some cultures. For example, some clients are accustomed to indirect communication and they would not be comfortable with a therapist showing direct expressions towards them. A third reason that this type of therapy might be a limitation is some culture groups go by collectivism instead of focusing on being an individual. In these cultures, clients are influenced by social expectations and not motivated by their own expectations. This is a major limitation for person-centered therapy because they focus on self-actualization, understanding the self, and trying to improve ones self. The focus on a person individual development and personal growth may seem selfish in a culture that may
The counselling process is one that may last for as little as one session or for years, it is within the middles stages of the helping relationship that particular counselling skills such as a focusing, challenging and immediacy can be implemented, as well as use of advanced empathy that can be applied due to increased familiarity with a speaker. Many actions may occur within middles stage of the helping relationship such as transitions that occur for a multitude of reasons and the outcome of which can vary based on the attitude of the speaker. Self-awareness remains vital throughout the entire counselling relationship due to the continual influence of empathy in the helping relationship and remaining aware my own motives and values when using advanced empathy and specific counselling skills. Ethics and boundaries are also involved within the counselling process as within a counselling relationship, I as the counsellor, must be careful with the balance or expenditure of power when challenging.
Reflective listening gives the client a sense of importance due to them currently having the floor and a moment to express themselves. Reflective listening is orchestrated through acts of showing empathy towards understanding the perspective of one’s feelings. Through this method, the listener does not offer their opinion or perspective while the client speaks. Adding eye contact can also be beneficial or uncomfortable due to client’s background. For example, one’s culture can believe that is it disrespectful not to make eye contact while another may not participate in that activity. During completing the initial assessment with Gwinda, the social work intern participated by allowing her to discuss the need for services. Gwinda further discussed how she is unsure of how the treatments will go and expressed how fearful she was to undergo these different changes. With uncertainty lingering, the social work intern sat next to Gwinda’s bedside ensuring during that moment the client had a listening
The counseling session began with the introductions where I introduced myself as the counselor and later introduced my client. This stage is important in any counseling session since it is the time of exploration and focusing according to Gerard Egan as quoted by Wright (1998) in his essay on couselling skills. It is in this session that I was able to establish rapport and trust with my client in order to come up with a working and fruitful relationship with him. During this stage I made use of skills like questioning, where I would pose a question directly to my client, sometimes I would choose to just listen to what the client wanted to speak out while in some instances I would be forced to paraphrase the question if I felt the client did not understand the question I had asked previously. There were also other times when I would reflect through silence. During such a period, I got time to study the client and the information he had given. This being a difficult area, since some clients may not be able to volunteer information to you as the counselor, I decided to assure the client of confidentiality of any information he was willing to share with me with a few exceptions which I also told him about. Being open to him about the only times the information may not be confidential was part of my building rapport and establishing trust with him. I therefore, decided to ask the client what information he wanted to share with me and lucky enough he was ready to speak to me about different issues that he was going through.
A good counsellor has to engage in several basic skills of interview including attending behaviour, questioning, encouraging, paraphrasing, summarising, and reflection of feelings (Achanta, 2014). These skills are obtained through practices and supervisions. Therefore, one has to evaluate the micro skills that he or she applies in counselling sessions to gain a better insight of his or her interviewing style, strengths, and limitations. Role-play sessions are considered effective in helping counsellors to practise their micro skills in a variety of situations that they might face (Ivey & Ivey, 2007). This essay is a self-reflection of my interviewing style and the skills that I used in a role-play session which helps me to understand my own strengths and limitations in counselling.