CHD 5013: Multicultural Counseling

Martin Wesley, Ph.D., LPCC, MAC

COPYRIGHT: 2007 Dr. WesleyUpdate: April 10, 2023

Truth and Understanding

No absolute truth is in this class or in the text. The information will change over time

Understanding needs to be gleaned from contextual interpretations and experiences that assist us in understanding the content

This class and text is directly influenced by the instructor and author’s personal, professional and scholarly encounters. Such information should not be minimized or neglected as it is also an expression of human diversity. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Purpose of Course

Counselors should honor the complexity of human diversity and attempt to move beyond stereotypical approaches likely to injure people’s lives in the name of good intention.

Multicultural counseling recognizes that to approach the client through an exclusive single dimension such as ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or social class is a disservice.

Purpose cont.

Knowledge of other cultures

Learn how individuals are products of their experience

Process of becoming an effective counselor includes:

Life long learning

Self-examination

Supervised counseling practice

Purpose cont.

Helping professionals can influence social and emotional barriers effecting America’s sub-groups mental health

An opportunity to learn how others think

Awareness of one’s own heritage

To move beyond stereotypical theoretical lenses and practice approaches when addressing the complexity of human diversity and commonalities

Barriers in Counseling

What “I” experience is what everyone else experiences

Everyone is like me and should be like me

Imposing the counselor’s personal values upon the client

Others

Knowledge and Awareness

Preconditions for learning and applying good counseling skills

Intentionally using skills

Coming in contact with unfamiliar groups

Engaging in conversations

Step outside your comfort zone

Concerns and Cautions

Much of multiculturalism literature or education is often an “either/or” situation overlooking the complexity of human differences. Some talk about specific groups as if there were no differences within the group membership. It is really frustrating that in the name of good intentions…, we are prolonging suffering by prolonging stereotypes.

More Cautions and Concerns

Sometimes the multicultural movement is the focus, sometimes unconscious and other times conscious, on prioritizing one set of human diversity attributes such as racial and ethnic traits over another such as religious or mental and physical uniqueness

More Cautions and Concerns

White students often feel that multicultural curriculum is biased against them and often is not inclusive; their experiences are perhaps neglected.Scapegoating of specific groups to perpetuate oppression.Stereotypes are cultivated and supported in the name of generalizations. Stereotypes perpetuate images that are frequently exclusive of individual and collective

More Cautions and Concerns

The terms White and People of Color are constantly used within multicultural literature. They are used to categorize people in terms of skin color and physical characteristics, and to reveal a framework for addressing issues of social oppression and privilege that exist between individuals classified under these categories. These terms, however, often perpetuate the notion of monodimensionalism, as people are put into exclusive boxes that are supposed to represent who they are.

The Need for Conscious Change

Paradigms of stereotypes dominate our culture.o Commercials, movies and other

multimediao Does our behavior in groups create

these paradigms or the media and culture itself?

Examples needed or political Correctness?

Masculine terminologies – mankind, cavemen, forefathers, etc.Bias – perception of men and womenHurricane Names – Male and “Lily White”Are we doing a disservice to our children by use of marginalization by depriving them of valuable information that could enhance their professional competence or are we just trying to be politically correct at every turn?

Cultural Perception

Christopher Columbus discovery or invasion?

Thanksgiving or National Day of Atonement?

Sameness and Differences

Unacknowledged differences and generalizations that neglect diversity within diversity set the standards for stereotypes, which often reinforce the cycle of individual and social oppression.“As long as stereotypes are perpetuated through literature, theoretical frameworks, and teaching strategies, the effort to promote human diversity and well-being of individuals, families, groups, and communities is likely to continue to be fragmented.”

Commonalities

As counselors we need to recognize, the points at which people differ and connect through shared commonalities, since they do not subtract from, but add to, who we are and who we can become

Rebounding from Oppression

History has shown how individuals, families, groups, and communities have rebounded from life conditions that make them overwhelmingly vulnerable, including social, economic, political, and health challenges. Why is it that other individuals, families, groups and communities seem to continue in their circumstances?

Multidimensional Practice

Multidimensional nature of practice means to identify, explore and foster human diversity, commonalities, and adversities from a nonstereotypical perspective.

People are more than what can be observed or measured

What is considered truth within one culture is perhaps irrelevant within another

Multidimensional Practice cont.

While cultural influences may lead groups of people to develop specific belief and value systems, a common language, and norms to guide interactions, cultural choices may illustrate people’s inner knowing and outer determination to honor cultural influences that are nurturing while attempting to change cultural influences that have been harmful to the human spirit.

Terms

Attributes

Human Diversity

Transcendence

Ethnocentrism

Acculturation

Oppression

Professional Competence

Ethnic, Ethnicity

Race

Culture

Marginalization

Assimilation

Privilege

Resilience

Stereotypes

Human Diversity

Living with similar issues helps to unify groups of peopleOne way to look at human diversity is to talk about how they differAttributes can reflect differences/uniqueness based on social experiences and conditions, rituals and customs, language and dialects, values and belief systems, and many other factors. Human diversity can be viewed as the interplay of domains (cognitive, physical, social, spiritual) that make one unique and distinctive. It can be recognized as variation reinforced by a multidimensional set of attributes

Transcendence

Transcendence can be generally viewed as a process by which an individual, family, group, or community reaches higher understanding of nonordinary realities

Transcendence acts as a catalyst to bridge the gap between the conditional mind limited by its paradigms and the realm of spirit – the gap between scientific thinking and esoteric knowing

Ethnic and Ethnicity

Ethnic is embedded in the concept of ethnicity, originally derived from the Greek word for ‘nation’ and was used to distinguish particular national groups from other groups not identified by nation, such as Jews or GypsiesEthnicity is currently used when distinguishing one group of people from another as a result of ethnic affiliationEthnicity refers is reflected in the notion of collective individualism – the ‘we’ and “them” and “outsider”.

Ethnicity cont.

The term ethnic tend to fall into two broad categories:

Ascribed – ascribed ethnics are populations to whom the designation is applied from the outside

Optional – optional ethnics are people who choose to identify themselves

Race

Race is often conceptualized as biological characteristics such as skin color, body shape, genetic codes and gene pools that differentiate one group from anotherRace has transcended biology by how racial distinctions have been used to withhold or encourage social and political mobilityRace itself is no positive or negative; it is simply how the information is used (meaning and interpretation)

Race cont.

Spickard writes: from the point of view of the dominate group, racial distinctions are a necessary tool of dominance. They serve to separate the subordinate people as “Other.” Putting simple, neat racial labels on dominated peoples – and creating negative myths about the moral qualities of those peoples – makes it easier for the dominators to ignore the individual humanity of their victims. It eases the guilt of oppression.

Culture

Culture can generally be characterized as constructed ways of living or a totality of learned behaviors. The experience of culture is reflected by individuals who share, as well as those who do not share, an ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic identity.

Cultural Influence and Choice

Cultural influence – conscious or unconscious systems of beliefs, values, and ways of thinking, believing and behaving that are perpetuated through human encounters and reinforcements

Cultural choice – conscious identification and exploration of beliefs, values, and ways of thinking and behaving, followed by a determination to embrace these or to actively engage in conscious change

Human commonalities

Human commonalities – the sharing of characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, degree of physical or mental ability, socioeconomic conditions, etc., within and between groups of people

Ethnocentrism and Marginalization

Ethnocentrism – the psychological, cultural, and social state of mind that fosters belief in the superiority of one’s own ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, often coupled with oppressive actions toward individuals and communities considered to be different and inferiorMarginalization – the exclusion of attributes and experiences that can help reveal a more comprehensive view of an individual, family, group, or community

Acculturation and Assimilation

Acculturation is the exchange of cultural features which result when groups come into continuous firsthand contact. Either or both groups of the original cultural patterns may be changed a bit, but the groups remain distinct overall.Cultural assimilation, or 'assimilation' for short (but that word also had other meanings), is an intense process of consistent integration whereby members of an ethno-cultural group, typically immigrants, or other minority groups, are "absorbed" into an established, generally larger community. This presumes a loss of all or many characteristics which make the newcomers different. A region or society where assimilation is occurring is sometimes referred to as a "melting pot."

Oppression

Oppression is the vicious use of power likely to create inequality, reduce access to valuable resources, and affect the well-being and optimal health of individuals, families, groups, and communities

Sexism is oppression based on gender differencesRacism is oppression based on racial dissimilaritiesHeterosexism is discrimination against individuals with a homosexual or bisexual identity Ageism is oppression based on age differencesClassism is oppression based on diverse socioeconomic status

Oppression cont.

Diversity within group membership is often masked by the notion of collectivism. Oppressive forces are alive and well within group membership. People may connect through an ethnic identity or common socioeconomic experiences and yet may differ in other identity.

Privilege

Privilege is a special advantage, immunity or benefit granted to groups

People have the potential to be the oppressor within particular contexts and yet be vulnerable enough to be the oppressed within other encounters

Resilience and Professional Competence

Resilience refers to the innate essence enacted in supportive relationships and resources that promote an ability to maintain, recover or regain a level of control after adversityProfessional competence refers to the ability to skillfully serve diverse individuals and communities within different contexts without engaging in stereotypical or immediately gratifying approaches that promote marginalization of important attributes or disempowerment of those being serviced

Stereotypes

Stereotypes are generalized assumptions, beliefs, opinions, and images – positive or negative – held and perpetuated toward specific individuals, groups, families and communities. More benignly, they may express sometimes-accurate folk wisdom about social reality.

Experiential Activity