Counseling the Culturally Diverse. Laura Smith L.

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СКАЧАТЬ groups operating on the person; the cultural groups also includes membership in multiple social identities, such as American Indian queer woman and White heterosexual man. The culturally responsive helping professional must be willing and able to balance understanding the three levels of personality without negating any aspect of their identity, particularly at the group level.

THE IMPACT OF GROUP IDENTITIES ON COUNSELING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY

      Accepting the premise that race, ethnicity, and culture are powerful variables in influencing how people think, make decisions, behave, and define events, it is not far‐fetched to conclude that such forces may also affect how different groups define a helping relationship (Herlihy & Corey, 2015). Culturally responsive psychologists have long noted, for example, that different theories of counseling and psychotherapy represent different worldviews, each with its own values, biases, and assumptions about human behavior (Geva & Wiener, 2015). Given that U.S. schools of counseling and psychotherapy arise from Western European contexts, the worldview that they espouse as reality may not be shared by racial/ethnic minority groups in the United States, or by those who reside in different countries (Lorelle, Atkins, & Michel, 2021; Parham et al., 2011). Each racial, ethnic, or cultural group has its own perspective on the nature of people, the origin of disorders, standards for judging normality and abnormality, and therapeutic approaches.

      Among many Asian Americans, for example, a self‐orientation is considered undesirable, whereas a group orientation is highly valued (Kim, 2011). The Japanese have a saying that goes like this: “The nail that stands up should be pounded back down.” In other words, healthy development is considering the needs of the entire group, whereas unhealthy development is thinking only of oneself. Likewise, relative to their EuroAmerican counterparts, many African Americans value the emotive and affective qualities of interpersonal interactions as qualities of sincerity and authenticity (West‐Olatunji & Conwill, 2011). EuroAmericans often view the passionate expression of affect as irrational, impulsive, immature, and lacking objectivity on the part of the communicator. Thus, the autonomy‐oriented goal of counseling and psychotherapy and the objective focus of the therapeutic process might prove antagonistic to the worldviews of some Asian Americans and African Americans, respectively.

      It is therefore highly probable that different racial and ethnic minority groups perceive the competence of the helping professional differently than do mainstream client groups. Further, if race and ethnicity affect perception, what about other group differences, such as gender and sexual orientation? Minority clients may see a clinician who exhibits therapeutic skills that are associated primarily with mainstream therapies as having lower credibility. The important question to ask is, “Do such groups as racial/ethnic minorities define cultural competence differently than do their EuroAmerican counterparts?” Anecdotal observations, clinical case studies, conceptual analytical writings, and some empirical studies seem to suggest an affirmative response (Fraga, Atkinson, & Wampold, 2002; Garrett & Portman, 2011; Guzman & Carrasco, 2011; McGoldrick, Giordano, & Garcia‐Preto, 2005).

WHAT IS MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND THERAPY?

In light of the previous analysis, let us define multicultural counseling and therapy (MCT) as it relates to the therapy process and the roles of the mental health practitioner:

      Multicultural counseling and therapy can be defined as both a helping role and a process that uses modalities and defines goals consistent with the life experiences and cultural values of clients; recognizes client identities to include individual, group, and universal dimensions; advocates the use of universal and culture‐specific strategies and roles in the healing process; and balances the importance of individualism and collectivism in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of client and client systems. (Sue & Torino, 2005)

      This definition often contrasts markedly with traditional views of counseling and psychotherapy. A more thorough analysis of these characteristics is described in Chapter 3. For now, let us extract the key phrases in our definition and expand their implications for clinical practice.

      1 Helping role and process. MCT broadens the roles that counselors play and expands the repertoire of therapy skills considered helpful and appropriate in counseling. The more passive and objective stance taken by therapists in clinical work is seen as only one method of helping. Likewise, teaching, consulting, and advocacy can supplement the conventional counselor or therapist role.

      2 Consistent with life experiences and cultural values. Effective MCT means using modalities and defining goals for culturally diverse clients that are consistent with their racial, cultural, ethnic, gender, and sexual‐orientation backgrounds. Advice and suggestions, for example, may be effectively used for some client populations.

      3 Individual, group, and universal dimensions of existence. As we have already seen, MCT acknowledges that our existence and identity are composed of individual (uniqueness), group, and universal dimensions. Any form of helping that fails to recognize the totality of these dimensions negates important aspects of a person's identity.

      4 Universal and culture‐specific strategies. MCT believes that different racial and ethnic minority groups might respond best to culture‐specific strategies of helping or culturally adaptive interventions. Such counseling takes into consideration how the client defines or understands their concern over and incorporation of culturally relevant concepts such as intergenerational stress, face‐saving, cultural mistrust, and racial and ethnic socialization.

      5 Individualism and collectivism. MCT broadens the perspective of the helping relationship by balancing the individualistic approach with a collectivistic reality that acknowledges our embeddedness in families, relationships with significant others, communities, and cultures. A client is perceived not just as an individual, but as an individual who is a product of his or her social and cultural context.

      6 Client and client systems. MCT assumes a dual role in helping clients. In many cases, for example, it is important to focus on individual clients and to encourage them to achieve insights and learn new behaviors. However, when problems of clients of color reside in prejudice, discrimination, and racism of employers, educators, and neighbors or in organizational policies or practices in schools, mental health agencies, government, businesses, and society, the traditional therapeutic role appears ineffective and inappropriate. The focus for change must shift to altering client systems rather than individual clients.

WHAT IS CULTURAL COMPETENCE?

      Consistent with the definition of MCT, it becomes clear that culturally responsive healers are working toward several primary goals (American Psychological Association, 2017; Ratts et al., 2015; Sue et al., 1998). First, culturally competent helping professionals are ones who are actively in the process of becoming aware of their own values, biases, assumptions about human behavior, preconceived notions, personal limitations, and so forth. Second, culturally competent helping professionals are ones who actively attempt to understand the worldview of their culturally diverse clients and the sociohistorical context in which that worldview develops. In other words, what are the client's values and assumptions about human behavior, biases, and so on? Third, culturally competent helping professionals are ones who are in the process of actively developing and practicing appropriate, relevant, and sensitive intervention strategies and skills in working with their culturally diverse clients. These three attributes make it clear that cultural competence is an active, developmental, and ongoing process and that it is aspirational rather than achieved. Specifically, we define cultural competence in the following manner.

       Cultural competence is a lifelong process in which one works to СКАЧАТЬ