Awareness And Biases Of Overcoming Counselor Biases

Overcoming Counselor Biases

Introduction

Without question, all counselors and more specifically all people possess certain biases that at times may cloud their judgment. Part of the human condition is to label and judge things based on sensory details. Any person that denies these claims is quite simply not being honest with themselves. These innate instincts ensure survival and are not all bad. They only become damaging and detrimental when they inspire unfairness and prejudicial attitudes and actions. A counselor’s value system and core beliefs will usually make or break a therapeutic relationship (Duncan, 2005). It has been determined that African American students, frequent counselor offices far less than do Caucasian students. One of the major reasons why they discontinue treatment prematurely can usually be attributed to perceived differences in values with the therapist (Duncan, 2005). This logic makes perfect sense since no person wants to invest in a relationship with someone who does not understand them and may not even

In order to maximize potential as a professional counselor, the therapist needs to regularly self-examine which usually transcends into more self-awareness. One definition of self-awareness is to be able to identify personal preferences and biases (Knapp, Gottlieb, & Handelsman, 2017). There are various means by which a person can achieve this. One method will be to ask oneself a series of questions: how do I immediately react to certain clients? Am I able to objectively assess my job skills, including strengths and weaknesses? Can I honestly detect my personal prejudices? Do I understand that counterproductive heuristics and cognitive biases place my job effectiveness in jeopardy? (Knapp et al., 2017). If a person answers to the affirmative to any of these questions then a true problem has been indicated and remedial action needs to be