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Cultural sensitivity
Theory of ethnic identity
Cultural sensitivity
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Culturally Competent Counselors Cultural competency has become a sizeable issue in the mental health profession. It is essential counselors appoint the cultural influences of each individual client. In the VFE video, the counselor effectively applied cultural considerations through his beliefs/attitudes, knowledge, and skills, while using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (AMCD, 1996). The counselor is able to converse with the client and therapeutically guide him through his issues, while being culturally aware and sensitive.
Beliefs/Attitudes
The counselor was able to take his beliefs and attitudes of culture and invest them into the therapeutic session. The counselor used his beliefs of the client’s culture to bring awareness to the client. The client discussed his feeling of being weak for turning to counseling. The counselor made it apparent that he was not weak, and he was being a leader for his family (Laureate Education, 2012h). The APA
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The counselor has a respectable amount of knowledge of the Hispanic culture. For example, the counselor understands the clients need to feel macho and superior. In the clients culture it is expected for men to be the head of the household and express machoism (Laureate Education, 2012h). The APA guidelines acknowledge the importance of counseling individuals who are culturally different. It is the counselor responsibility to be sensitive and responsive when counseling individuals from different cultures. The APA guidelines require counselors to educate themselves about cultures and gain knowledge to benefit the client (APA, n.d.). I have gained insights through the colleague’s discussion of the difficulty of the client role shifting. It is important to recognize when these cultural difficulties occur in the counseling process. The counselor was able to identify the issue and present it to the client, leading the client to accept his culture
With the growing population of minorities in the United States, it is reasonable to believe that at some point in a counselor or therapist career, there will be a session with a Latino/Hispanic client. From a cultural competence perspective, it is imperative that a counselor understands the Latino/Hispanic culture and their worldviews. Counseling Latinos offer to be discussed in the paper is the case of an Alberto and Angela a Mexican American couple married for 27 years. Alberto has recently lost his job. (
During the initial interview with the client a new format is used called the Cultural Case Formulation. This takes into account the cultural identity of the person, their cultural definitions of distress, and cultural stressors. Psychosocial stressors are included which can be unique to each culture and the level that a person identifies with their culture can be taken into account when treatment planning. By assessing a client's cultural identity this may allow the clinician to identify barriers or commonalities between themselves and the
Hays, P. A. (2008). Addressing cultural complexities in practice: Assessment, diagnosis, and therapy (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
The theoretical approach used to research the use of interpreters in counseling was a culturally grounded approach. According to Marsiglia and Kulis (2009) a culturally grounded approach embraces diversity and multiculturalism and also promotes a change that improves an individual or a group’s quality of life (p. 102-103). Farooq and Fear (2003) state that counseling is a social service that has been shown to need a culturally competent staff and the use of a culturally competent staff improves the quality of service the client receives. Social services are not always culturally competent (Marsiglia & Kulis, 2009). A culturally grounded approach in the research of the use of interpreters in counseling looks at how interpreters improve counseling service provided to clients who either speak English as a second language or do not speak English. The use of a culturally grounded a...
It is important to include cultural issues in the helping process to be more effective. We also need cultural competence because the U.S. is becoming more diverse. Therefore with diversity comes different beliefs, norms, and values. Eurocentric values dominate sciences and began cultural universals which puts the clash of dominate and non-dominate cultural behaviors in motion. In 1996 the NASW Code of Ethics increased the recognition of cultural competence. It is important to know diversity exist within ethnic and cultural groups because social workers need to know that relationships between helping professionals and clients may be strained. This happens because of the distrust between groups. Another important aspect is that the professional realizes their own values, biases, and beliefs. The reason for this is because they must value diversity to start with and understand the dynamics of difference. Culturally competent practitioners have to go through developmental process of using their own culture as a starting point to meet all behaviors. Striving for cultural competence is a long term process of development. The literature on cultural competence is theoretical and conceptual. They have not been evaluated in a systematic way. Roughly there are 2 million Native americans in the U.S. Which survive decimating disease, over-repressed in child welfare system, suffer from health problems, and are among the poorest people in the United States. Working with them clearly falls within the social work clearly mandate to serve vulnerable and oppressed clients. However, we do not know how many people from this group is actually receiving help from social workers. Even though it is important to train social workers to provide care in th...
Counselors today face the task of how to appropriately counsel multicultural clients. Being sensitive to cultural variables can be conceptualized as holding a cultural lens to human behavior and making allowances for the possibility of cultural influence. However, to avoid stereotyping, it is important that the clinician recognize the existence of within-group differences as well as the influence of the client’s own personal culture and values (Furman, Negi, Iwamoto, Shukraft, & Gragg, 2009). One’s background is not always black or white and a counselor needs to be able to discern and adjust one’s treatment plan according to their client.
Culture can be defined as behaviors exhibited by certain racial, religious, social or ethnic groups. Some factors in which culture may vary include: family structure, education, and socioeconomic status (Kodjo, 2009). Some may think cultural competence is something that has an end point, however, when the big picture is seen, it is a learning process and journey. From the writer’s perspective, the client-therapist relationship can be challenging. Culturally competent therapists must realize that behaviors are shaped by an individual’s culture. Many changes are taking place within the United States cultural makeup. Therapists and healthcare professionals are being challenged to provide effective and sensitive care for patients and their families. This type of culturally sensitive care requires the professional to be open and seek understanding in the patients diverse belief systems (Kodjo, 2009).
It is important for a counselor to be culturally competent. This is not always an easy task because there are a lot of different cultures with different values. The Racial/ Cultural Identity Development Model was created to help counselors understand their culturally diverse clients more. This model has five levels: conformity, dissonance, resistance and immersion, introspection, and integrative awareness. In this essay I am going to describe these levels and how it can impact the counseling process.
Cultural Competence Understanding culture is an important aspect of being a social worker; this does not mean learning common cultural traits is of great significance to the social work profession. “Consider the second-generation Japanese-American social worker whose practice consists of Mexican-American and African-American families. Memorizing national traits or cultural rituals would be interesting and informative, but ultimately these would be an inaccurate basis on which to “know” these particular families” (Dorfman, 1996, p. 33). When understanding cultural competence, it is important to learn from the client about their culture in order to serve them in the most helpful and efficient way possible. There is a major drawback to memorizing information, and that is, this information will not give you a real understanding of who your client is and what life experiences they have personally faced.
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
Counseling a client from another culture, I believe it is the most beneficial experience in the world. My own personal theory on achieving the title of a culturally skilled counselor is to be sensitive to cultural differences of the client, while providing assistance blending into the American culture, and maintaining their own cultural identity. Counselors will require training and personal development to turn into a culturally skilled counselor. The program that I have proposed is two step processes which incorporate different components. The first step is counselor awareness and the other is client awareness.
Hays, P. A. (2008). Addressing cultural complexities in practice: Assessment, diagnosis, and therapy (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Smith, T. B., Rodríguez, M. D., & Bernal, G. (2011). Culture. In J. C. Norcross (Ed.), Psychotherapy relationships that work (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Kim, B. S. K., Ng, G. S., & Ahn, A. J. (2005). Effects of client expectation for counseling success, client-counselor worldview match, and client adherence to asian and european american cultural values on counseling process with asian americans. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52, 67-76.
There are different perspectives, however, which put stress on various aspects of culture and try to identify its boundaries and its substitutes. Some regard culture as separate entity from demographic factors, some point out acculturation as one of the obstacles, which makes culture difficult to identify, some show how an intimate and meaningful relationship between a counsellor and a culturally different client to be established. In this essay I will be discussing what the different concepts of understanding of culture in Counselling are, by examining different authors and perspectives and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses.