● Which parts of my identity are privileged and/or marginalized? ● How does my sense of identity shift based on context and settings? Respectful Partnerships Developing respectful partnerships is key to counseling with cultural humility and, more generally, to developing a relationship within the counseling setting that allows work to begin and to continue productively. Respectful partnerships include discussing and addressing different topics such as race, socioeconomic class, gender, sexual identity, and disability. These discussions are uncomfortable for many; they bring up feelings, often passionate, associated with “isms,” group identification, prejudice, quotas, and affirmative action. Nevertheless, these differences between counselor and client are a presence in the room and, when ignored, can interfere with an honest and open exchange. Counselors often attempt to take the emphasis off race, class, gender, and other areas of difference by denying the effect these aspects of diversity have on clients (e.g., “The only race I know is the human race”) or by trying to show that they understand the client’s experience because they, too, are a member of an oppressed group. For example, the African American client may not feel that the counselor, as a bisexual Jewish woman, understands subtle racial insults from personal experiences. Some counselors imply that because they do not discriminate against oppressed groups, no Lifelong Learning The counseling professions are committed to lifelong learning. Such learning is typically a part of practicing within the ethical standards of counseling professions, including social work, psychology, mental health counseling, school counseling, and marriage and family counseling (AAMFT, 2015; ACA, 2014; AMHCA, 2015; APA, 2017; ASCA, 2016; NASW, 2017). The commitment to lifelong learning within the ethical standards requires counselors to participate in activities that keep them current on issues and interventions within the field and provide clients with the most appropriate care and service. Lifelong learning in the context of cultural humility emphasizes the importance of current issues inclusive of a multicultural perspective that encompasses aspects of critical self-reflection and advocacy involving continued growth and learning. According to Fisher-Borne and colleagues (2015), “Cultural humility considers the fluidity and subjectivity of culture and challenges individuals and institutions to address inequalities. As Assessment and Treatment Counselors need to approach every individual client with a cognizance of the possible intersecting identities within the client but without a stereotype of the client based on preconceived notions of these intersecting identities (e.g., race, ethnicity, LGBTQ status). Implementing the practice of cultural humility may flummox counselors as they approach clients in a clinical setting. There are some guidelines and frameworks that aid counselors in providing appropriate care to a diversity of clients. Hardy and McGoldrick (2008), for example, have written and spoken extensively on race in clinical settings and have suggested that for therapy to be successful, the clinician needs to “make room for unspoken structures, the cultural, racial, class, and gender-based hierarchies that are the underpinnings of our society. It goes unacknowledged that African American, Latino, Asian, and other racially oppressed people do not have the same entitlements to participate in our institutions, even in our world of family therapy” (Hardy & McGoldrick, 2008, p. 6). Simply put, therapists need to speak the unspoken. In clinical settings, therapists (White therapists in particular) need to take the lead in raising the subject of race, thus opening the door for clients to discuss salient issues around their experiences affecting their physical and mental health. The following example from Wyatt (n.d.) illuminates some critical elements of counseling with cultural humility. An interracial
● What are the parts onto which people project? Moreover, which parts are received well, and by whom? ● What might be my own blind spots and biases?
individual or societal problems exist associated with race, class, LGBTQ status, or disability; this attitude negates the experience the client may have in the larger society, where they experience various degrees of marginalization based on their intersecting identities (Minarik, 2017). Cultural humility enables counselors to consider potential power imbalances in their relationships with patients, and potentially other members of staff, which could affect patient outcomes and experiences. These power imbalances may occur as a result of professional status and knowledge, which can place counselors in a position of power compared with their patients. Some counselors, for example, may believe that they “know best” and regard patients as lacking knowledge. Findings reveal that cultural humility improves the engagement process when the therapist explores cultural discussion once initiated by the clients, and it also repairs a ruptured therapeutic relationship when the client views the therapist as culturally humbled. These findings address the importance and utility of the cultural humility framework to engage and retain first- generation college students in counseling (Rovitto, 2022). a concept, it challenges active engagement in a lifelong process that individuals enter with clients, organizational structures, and within themselves” (p. 171). Cultural humility requires self-reflection, taking risks, discovering new information, and using clients and others as resources (Obiakor & Algozzine, 2016). Culturally humble learners understand that they will both make mistakes and learn from those mistakes because, as counselors, they are in a constant state of becoming. Lifelong learning allows the counselor to integrate shifting paradigms and continue reflection and reeducation regarding dominant perspectives on marginalized populations and communities (Obiakor & Algozzine, 2016). Finally, it requires that counselors separate themselves from thinking about clients from a deficit perspective and instead think of clients as fellow humans with rich intellectual, cultural, ethnic, and class backgrounds and with various strengths (Obiakor & Algozzine, 2016). couple, an African American father and a White mother, come into therapy because their child was kicked out of school for fighting. The father was called into child protective services for spanking his child. When they entered the office, the father was furious; the mother was getting extremely upset, trying to calm him down. The White therapist suggested meeting with the father alone first. When he met with the father, rather than trying to silence his rage, he joined him by stating, “It sounds like you are furious with the situation that’s happened; you are tired of it.” The father could calm down at that point, as the White therapist allowed him to be angry in his presence and acknowledged that there might be a reason for his anger. The therapist then asked the father if his disciplining method had anything to do with wanting to protect his child. The father responded that he was afraid his child, “a Black kid,” was at risk of going to prison if he fought at school. The father did not want that for his child and was frightened. The therapist made the clinical session more meaningful by allowing the father to express his rage and fear. Counselors who practice cultural humility also recognize that assessment tools and treatment protocols may not be appropriate for all clients. Historically, many therapeutic strategies employed in counseling treatment were developed without empirically supported research on ethnic minorities (Sue & Sue, 2016). Acknowledging these limitations, the American
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