Multicultural Counseling

Question 1

Define cultural competence and discuss the role that self-awareness plays in this process

Answer 1

Aware of one’s own values, biases, etc.

Understand worldview of culturally diverse clients

Develop relevant practices with diverse clients

Ongoing developmental/life-long process

Considers factors outside client

Power & privilege

Question 2

What is Multicultural Counseling and Therapy. How does it differ from traditional forms of therapy?

Answer 2

It can be defined as both a role and a process that is consistent with the life experiences and cultural values of clients; recognizes client identities to include individual, group, and universal dimensions.

Advocates the use of universal & culture-specific strategies and roles in the healing process.

Balances the importance of individualism and collectivism in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of client and client systems.

Question 3

FOUR DOMAINS OF CULTURAL COMPETENCE

Answer 3

1. counselor self-awareness
2. client worldview
3. counseling relationship
4. counseling and advocacy interventions: what kinds of strategies to use

Question 4

FOUR COMPETENCIES

Answer 4

1. attitudes and beliefs: cultural humility, examine your own prejudices
2. knowledge: facts
3. skills: do you know how to bring up the issues of culture, race, or gender? What a teenager coming out needs to hear?
4. Action: are you doing those things?

Question 5

What is Narrative Therapy?

Answer 5

1. Strengths-based approach
2. Emphasizes one’s interpretation of experiences as “truths” about themselves. Individuals can have different realities of the same experience.
3. Clients may internalize the scripts/messages they face from dominant narratives. Narrative therapy seeks to make a separation where that internalization has occurred. Externalizing systematic or institutional oppression.
4. Making connections to past unique outcomes in order to compose the future narrative where the client is more powerful than the oppression or problems they face. Goal is to create “new opportunity for relationship and behavior with others”.

Question 6

What are specific interventions in Narrative Therapy?

Answer 6

Establishing a strong therapeutic alliance early on to be a trusted co-author & collaborator for the client’s narrative. Therapist is a collaborator, not expert.

Therapist should be aware of the client’s verbal, paraverbal, and nonverbal communication in session. Ask questions (process comments) to increase client’s awareness and possibly have them go inward

“Naming” characters in the clients narrative (i.e. hopelessness, anger, sadness). Asking questions about what the client’s narrative looks like when those characters are or are not present. Personify the characters and ask client how the characters operate, what do they do? Are there are times when those characters are not present?

Question 7

What are the goals of Narrative Therapy?

Answer 7

The client is primarily responsible for the direction of therapy, they identify the goals. Change will come from within the client and phase outward, opposed to change in the environment.

Helping the client become independent and develop adaptive coping strategies to work on problem situations.

Narrative shifts: client gains the knowledge that the characters they have named may have affected their story or taken over in the past, the client has the power to write those characters out of their life’s narrative.