Psychological Association developed a list of empirically supported treatments and practice guidelines for diverse clients (APA, 2006). However, counselors should not rely solely on manualized treatment protocols to guide their interventions. Such an approach can fail to appreciate clients’ unique experiences and the effect of different social environments. Employing a research-based therapeutic practice, counselors should adopt the system by the client’s values, experiences, and preferences while understanding the influence of the broader societal context (Jackson, 2015). Counselors can create an environment that appreciates clients’ perspectives by facilitating a respectful partnership that allows clients to take the lead in
narrating their experiences and identifying personal treatment goals. A multicultural perspective in counseling began to emerge almost 30 years ago. Table 3 outlines the essential aspects of the multicultural perspective in clinical settings. The considerations outlined in Table 3 require counselors to balance many different facets of clients and their lived experiences. It is essential in treatment to adhere to these guidelines, as it sets up a counseling environment in which therapists and clients are equal while forcing counselors to consider the validity of various worldviews and the structural inequities that contribute to the problems and issues clients bring into counseling.
Table 3: Multicultural Perspectives in Counseling 1. Provides the opportunity for two persons -from different cultural perspectives - to disagree without one being right and the other wrong. 2. Tolerates and encourages a diverse and complex perspective. 3. Allows for more than one answer to a problem and more than one way to arrive at a solution. 4. Recognizes that a failure to understand or accept another worldview can have detrimental consequences. 5. Takes a broad view of culture by recognizing the following variables: ethnographic (ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, language usage, ability, LGBTQ status); demographic (age, gender, gender identity, place of residence); position (social, economic, educational factors); affiliations (formal memberships, informal networks). 6. Conceives culture as complex when we count up the hundreds or thousands of culturally learned identities and affiliations that people assume at one time or another. 9. Views behaviors as meaningful when linked to culturally learned expectations and values. 10. Acknowledges significant within-group differences for any particular ethnic or nationality group. 11. Recognizes that no one style of counseling—theory or school— is appropriate for all populations and situations. 12. Recognizes the part that societal structures play in clients’ lives. Note : Adapted in part from “The multicultural perspective in therapy: A social constructionist approach,” by Gonzalez, R. C., et al., 1994. Psychotherapy, 31 , 515-524. Counselor Roles The culturally humble practitioner works toward understanding themself and their clients within the context of privilege, oppression, and marginalization. A practitioner’s work necessarily engages clients as equal partners and addresses social 7. Conceives of culture as dynamic as one such culturally learned identity replaces another in salience. 8. Uses methods and strategies and defines goals constituent with life expectations and values.
psychoeducation, change agent, community worker, and so on” (Sue & Sue, 2016, p. 134). The social justice perspective requires counselors to assess and intervene with a view that balances the individual client and the system(s) in which the client is experiencing difficulties (Sue & Sue, 2016). The counselor can act as an advocate and actively speak with and, when necessary, for members of populations oppressed by the dominant society, confronting institutional and societal oppression. Counselors can also be effective as “change agents” working to transform oppressive features of the institutional and societal environments. Rather than attributing client problems to individual deficits, the counselor works with the client to identify external contributors to the problem and remediate the consequences of oppression. Further, critical self-reflection in cultural humility includes an analysis of power differentials and how those differentials may play out on individual and institutional levels (Fisher-Borne et al., 2015). Practicing with cultural humility suggests that counselors go beyond the confines of their offices to address differences in power and privilege that affect clients in tangible ways. Counselors must be self-aware and realize that clients react positively to counselors who display personal warmth, authenticity, credibility, and respect and strive for human connectedness. Practicing with cultural humility provides the following: “A promising alternative to cultural competence … as it makes explicit the interaction between the institution and the individual and the presence of systemic power imbalances. It further calls upon practitioners to confront inequalities rather than just acknowledge they exist. Cultural humility challenges us to ask difficult questions instead of reducing our clients to a set of norms we have learned in a training or course about “difference.” We believe that asking critical questions …
inequalities and injustices on institutional and societal levels. The culturally humble practitioner sees the counselor’s role as providing “therapeutic interventions” and addressing systems that oppress marginalized communities to promote optimal well- being for clients, communities, and society. A culturally humble counselor must provide modalities that transcend culture, ability, LGBTQ status, and class and integrate client-stated cultural and other considerations into treatment. Moreover, the counselor must recognize the roles that power, privilege, and oppression play in the counseling relationship and clients’ experiences (Sue & Sue, 2016). Recognizing how power and oppression play out in clients’ lives calls on the counselor to take on a broader advocacy role when appropriate. Lifelong learning, critical self- reflection, and self-critique are needed to continuously hone therapeutic skills and learn new information that is imperative to facilitating the therapeutic relationship and addressing existing societal inequities (Hook et al., 2013). The counselor can fulfill many roles. Because multicultural counseling is closely linked to the values of social justice, the need for a social justice orientation in counseling is apparent (Sue & Sue, 2016). Social justice counseling is defined as “an active philosophy and approach aimed at producing conditions that allow for equal access and opportunity; reducing or eliminating disparities in education, health care, employment, and other areas that lower the quality of life for affected populations; encouraging the mental health professional to consider micro, mezzo, and macro levels in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of client and client systems; and broadening the role of the helping professional to include not only counselor/therapist but advocate, consultant,
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