Understanding race, ethnicity, and culture is an extremely important aspect of being a counselor. If an individual does not have cultural identity of their own or understand his or herself as a cultural, ethnic, or racial individual, it may be difficult to help your clients. Understanding and being aware of your cultural identity will help the counselor be conscious of their own prejudice. Being aware of your own prejudice towards any culture, race, or ethnic group may help you redirect your negative thinking into a positive active role as a counselor. Having awareness will make an individual an improved counselor able to empathize and understand any individual who seeks therapy. To begin with, the first level of cultural identity is race. …show more content…
During the contact status, an individual may experience unawareness or be oblivious to racism. These individuals are color-blind to race and may view racial issues as unimportant. In the disintegration status, individuals have conflict over the racial moral dilemmas that are perceived as polar opposites. For example, individuals in this status may say remarks such as, “I’m personally not against interracial marriages, but I worry about the children” (Sue and Sue, 2013, p. 325). Furthermore, individuals in this status may feel guilt, depression, hopelessness, and …show more content…
I choose to ignore discrimination against women and believe that it does not always occur. Furthermore, my beliefs are that any discrimination that may occur could have been a misunderstanding. Thus, this may affect my counseling relationship because women who come to me and explain that they have been discriminated against may think that I may dismiss them as it just being a misinterpretation on their part. Although, I do value women and see them as strong and independent for forcing on their careers, my clients may not feel comfortable discussing their concerns and issues with
The Helms White Racial Identity Model, created by Dr. Janet Helms, has six stages which are now referred to as statuses. The statuses are, contact, disintegration, reintegration, pseudoindependence, immersion/emersion, and autonomy. The first status, contact, shows obliviousness to being unaware of racism. This status shows that an individual believes everyone has an equal chance to success and lacks understanding of discrimination and prejudice. The second status is the disintegration status meaning that there is conflict among an individual’s loyalty to their group and “humanistic ideals”. These people may try to avoid people of a different race, may attempt to be “color blind”, and may seek reassurance from other Whites that racism is not their fault. The next status is reintegration. If reintegration occurs, racial/ethnic minorities may be blamed for their problems.
Have you ever felt discriminated against in the workplace? Usually, women are the most common people that are mistreated in the workplace. There are many reasons why women are discriminated against, but none of them are excuses for women for not being successful. Women face sexism by getting less pay than men, not getting promoted as equally as men, and facing other gender stereotypes, but sexism can be solved by women confronting their internal and external barriers and finding people that can help women.
With the potential language barrier, a counselor could also ask an interpreter to mediate with the client during sessions to make sure there is an understanding between the client and the counselor. Multicultural knowledge includes counselors’ understanding of their own worldview, knowledge of cultural groups with whom the counselor works, and recognition of sociopolitical factors that impact diverse clients’ lives. Beliefs and attitudes encompass counselors’ values associated with different cultural groups, their ability to recognize and hold in check stereotypes of different cultural groups, a celebration of diversity, and an awareness of how their biases and negative attitudes can adversely influence counseling relationships (Ivers, 2012). One of the hardest parts about being a counselor is admitting your own biases and stereotyping before counseling others of different cultural ethnicities. Once a counselor understands their own biases and stereotyping towards others, they are better able to catch themselves from letting their biases affect their counseling.
It is pertinent to study the history of racial oppression when preparing to counsel a client from an ethnic minority if the counselor is from the majority culture. The problem is it would be difficult to examine the complete history and would be highly impossible especially in a short time. However, a therapist can gain knowledge of some of the essentials of history such as, religion, family structure, and background information. If the therapist or counselor is uncomfortable counseling these individuals he/or she can refer the client to someone who has more knowledge or has the same cultural background as the client. For instance, a therapist must become aware of the sociopolitical dynamics that form not only their clients’ views, but their own as well. Racial and cultural dynamics may interfere into the helping process and cause misdiagnosis, confusion, pain and reinforcement of biases and prejudices towards their client.
Race and ethnicity can influence a client’s experience of self and others in a variety of ways. A client’s personal race and ethnicity can influence his or her experience within the context of therapy through the set of beliefs he or she brings into the room. This set of beliefs and customs influences how he or she views therapy and whether there is motivation to be there. If the client’s culture does not usually seek therapy for their problems, or even believe in mental illness, it is likely the client will have apprehensions about trusting or speaking to the clinician. If the clinician is not aware of this possibility, the clinician may wonder why the client is in therapy if he or she will not speak or allow rapport to be built. A responsible clinician will take this into consideration.
Acculturation, worldview and perceived discrimination as cultural variables influence career behaviors of racial/ethnic minorities. Multicultural education and diversity appreciation training are thought to decrease counselor prejudice. Theme four looks at multicultural issues that require counselors to incorporate cultural data into their thinking and actions. Multicultural competence incorporates learning how to include cultural data into decision making process of complicated problems and interventions posed by culturally different clients. Theme five posits that people have multiple identities that affect the ways they experience and view the world. Multiple identities are used to refer to variables such as sex, age, socioeconomic status, nationality and ethnicity which impact an individual’s behavior, perception and
The diversity among clients and the counselor is an issue that has recently come to the forefront. The counselor must be very cautious and sensitive to the cultural values of their clients, gender and gender preference, age, language preference, ethnicity, and spirituality and religious beliefs.
After reading the many articles on the notion of diagnosis and counseling with multicultural/ethnic patients, it has come to my attention that this focus is solely based on stereotypical attitudes. Sure, it can be said that it is important for a therapist to have a background of the patient’s heritage and culture, but doesn’t this necessarily mean that the outlook of the therapist will be put in a box by doing so? I think multicultural competency is a ridiculous way to improve patient-therapist relationships because of several reasons. First off, generalities and race-centralisms only hinder, not improve, the inner workings of a therapy session. Second, there is no real way to test for competency of multicultural issues. So the question of competency cannot be tested and thus should be removed from the criteria of abilities of a therapist. Third, these types of attachments in the learning of diagnosis and therapy only add to stereotypical and racist behavior.
Remember, self-reflection is vital to becoming a culturally-competent counselor. The counselor should consistently re-examine their worldview and personal beliefs about diverse individuals and other cultures. The idea is for the counselor to explore their own prejudices, emotions, and preconceived notions of those that differ from themselves. Remaining curious and willing to learn about culturally distinct groups is a practical way of working effectively with varied clients in counseling and understanding what barriers and prejudices are typical in their
Cognitive behavior therapy helps to change the way that people think or behave. This paper will discuss this approach applied through multicultural lenses. It will discuss a therapy session and how the therapist applied this approach and how effective it was. It will then explain how the therapist applied the AMCD multicultural counseling competencies.
A therapist will face problems, issues and client troubles everyday. The professional must understand how their client relates to the world around them. These feelings and ideas affect how the client sees the problem and how they respond to their situation. Their actions, in turn, have bearing on individual thoughts, needs, and emotions. The therapist must be aware of the client's history, values, and culture in order to provide effective therapy. This paper will outline and provide information as to the importance of cultural competence and diversity in family therapy.
No human being is culture free. We are a product of the many different cultures which surround us. Our values, worldview and experiences are structured by the society and culture that exert influences on our lives each day.
Implications and Learning Each person’s cultural background influences the type of counselor they will be. Biases, values, beliefs and much more influence how a counselor approaches counseling. A main influence a counselor’s background has on their practice is the theory in which they identify.
Although some of the worst employment discrimination was eliminated by the Civil Rights Act in 1964, many women continue to undergo unfair and unlawful discrimination in the workplace. Even though women have come a long way, they are still being discriminated against in certain fields of work. High-end jobs, most commonly large companies and medical fields, continue to discriminate against women even though they have the same job qualifications as men.
Throughout the interview, Both of my interviewers explained to me how effective gender and workplace can affect a person, and this was the part of the interview I found most surprising. Both party 's said that the more discriminated they were helped them work harder. I mentioned I thought this was what people experience when they both want a higher position at work, and both said it can be very challenging to move up when you 're affected by discrimination, and that the main focus with moving up in a higher position is having a positive attitude and overlooking