PSYC 561 Multicultural Flashcards
Acculturation
the process used by the minority culture to imitate the majority culture by adapting various aspects of the majority culture into their culture. This can also be seen bidirectionally, with majority culture adapting certain aspects of the minority culture. Occurs at the individual and group level. Acculturation can result in acculturation stress - not unlike post traumatic stress, this type of stress refers to the anxiety depression, and conflict, which accompany moving into a new culture.
EXAMPLE: You are seeing a client that just moved to the United States from Peru. He is struggling with immense anxiety due to acculturation stress. As his therapist, you will need to help him navigate through this stress and learn to adapt various aspects of American culture without abandoning his Peruvian culture.
Assimilation
the process by which a person or group adopts a new culture that virtually replaces their original culture, leaving only trace elements behind. Assimilation is common among immigrant populations that seek to blend in with the existing fabric of society and want to seen and embraced as belonging. Individuals may feel pressure from members of the majority culture to assimilate quickly. Generally seen as a negative thing.
EXAMPLE: You are working with a white male client that is extremely anti-immigration. He expects immigrants to assimilate into his culture and completely abandon their own. This is something that causes him a lot of stress. It is your job to work with him to explore the cost and benefits of such black and white thinking.
Collectivism
philosophical, political, economic or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals; a way of life in some cultures in which the group is the primary unit, not the individual. The needs and interests of individuals are sacrificed in order to meet the needs of the group as a whole. This philosophy is prominent in Eastern cultures. It is in strong contrast to the prevailing sentiment in the United States, which is individualism.
EXAMPLE:When counseling someone from a collectivist background, the therapist must be careful not to impose his/her own individualistic viewpoint on the client. For instance, the therapist must resist passing judgements on someone he/she deems “too dependent” because in collectivistic cultures dependence is not viewed as badly as it is in individualistic cultures.
EXAMPLE: Aya comes to therapy because she is having a significant amount of anxiety about her parents, who are Asian-American. They are aging and wish to move in with her, something Aya would like for them to do, but she is experiencing pressure form her American friends who claim that having her parents live with her is weird. The therapist understands that Aya comes from a collectivist culture in which the good of the whole is more important than that of the individual, and tries to help Aya within that context to resolve this conflict.
Coming Out Process
coming out is the process in which individuals reveal to their family and friends that they are gay or lesbian. Not everyone goes through the same process or the same steps. This is not a linear process and the individual typically has to “come out” many times throughout their life. There are positives and negatives of coming out. Important to consider all consequences when counseling a pt thinking about coming out.
Positives include building self esteem, building more genuine relationships, and being a role model to others.
Negatives include rejection, harassment, discrimination, and loss of social support.
6 Stages of Coming Out:
- Confusion- question and wonder about sexuality; might experience denial
- Comparison- accept possibility that you may be gay
- Tolerance- acceptance increases, may isolate self because self-concept is becoming different from society’s expectations
- Acceptance- have resolved most ?s concerning sexual identity and have accepted self
- Pride- begin to feel pride; immerse self in LGB culture; may feel anger with or reject hetero community
- Synthesis- integrate sexual identity with other aspects of self so it is just one part of whole identity. Feel more congruence
EXAMPLE: A 20 year old male was seeking therapy due to anxiety about his sexual orientation. He explained to the therapist that his family would never accept him if they found out he was homosexual, but that he had to tell someone. The therapist offered help and together they explored the consequences of coming out process. He role played coming out to his dad with the therapist.
Cultural Competence
Ability of therapist to understand the various influence of culture on a person’s behavior and interactions; Can be defined in three different areas: Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills. Awareness includes knowing one’s own culture, views, biases, and comfort levels of various backgrounds. Knowledge refers to the therapist’s knowledge of the cultural group both currently and historically, along with any barriers that group may have faced. Skills refer to implementing culturally appropriate interventions and receiving and sending information in ways that take into account cultural background; also recognizing one’s own personal limitations. Cultural competence is not something that can be learned one time, but is instead a lifelong process in which therapists must remain continually engaged.
EXAMPLE: Eva is a therapist who is practicing on a Native American reservation. She attends ceremonies and meetings with tribe’s elders in order to better understand how to help her clients in the context of their culture, thereby increasing her cultural competence.
Bicultural
having or combining the cultural attitudes and customs of two nations, peoples, or ethnic groups. An individual who is bicultural is conversant with both sets of values and customs. Identifying with two or more cultures, typically seen with one’s heritage culture and the culture of the country or region in which one has settled. Maintaining biculturality can be difficult if the majority culture is pressuring for assimilation.
EXAMPLE: You are counseling the child of an immigrant. The child is bicultural because he/she is deeply embedded in the heritage culture at home, but is also active and knowledgeable of American culture due to interactions at school and work.
Cultural Relativism
The principle that an individual human’s beliefs and activities should be interpreted in terms of his or her own culture. It is important to note that cultural values and worldviews influence the expression and determination of deviant behavior, which makes paying attention to relativism in the clinical context so important. Some psychologists focus on an individual’s culture and how the disorder they have is manifested and treated within it. In some cultures, it is more acceptable to express psychological complaints in physical terms. In other cultures, it is not considered abnormal to experience hallucinations.
EXAMPLE: Amy, a Vietnamese immigrant, comes to therapy complaining of headaches and stomachaches. In the course of treatment, the therapist realized that these frequent aches, with no apparent physical cause, were manifestations of his anxiety about his family’s financial well-being back in Vietnam. The therapist came from the perspective of cultural relativism and understood that this was a valid way of expressing that anxiety, and crafted a plan to address it.
Cultural Universality
In contrast to cultural relativism, this is the view that the concepts of normality and abnormality can universally be applied, regardless of culture. Proponents of this view believe that culturally diverse individuals do not need treatments to be adjusted for them, but can be treated just the same as an individual from a Western culture.
EXAMPLE: A therapist that takes a cultural universality approach does not spend much time assessing or exploring a client’s culture as they do not believe it affects the person’s symptoms, interpretation of treatments, or presentation of disorders.
Culture
generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance; this is a set of shared customs, beliefs, values, goals and practices that are common to or characteristic of a specific group.. Frequently culture has a significant influence on one’s sense of identity, and to understand the client’s internal frame of reference the counselor must understand their culture.
EXAMPLE: You’re greeting a new African American client for the first time. You have a coffee in your right hand so you reach out and shake his hand with your left. The client is visibly pissed off. After discussing it, you find out that shaking his hand with your left is a sign of disrespect in his culture, even though you did not think of it that way or intend for it to be disrespectful.
Culture Bound
Refers to behaviors that are linked to a specific culture or tied to a specific group of people and their values and beliefs. Certain syndromes and disorders may be culture bound, as well as certain treatments. A counselor must be careful not to diagnose something that is considered normal in a culture as a disorder, and also must be sure to be aware of disorders that occur only in specific cultures. Values can be culture bound as well, such as emotional expressiveness, insight, and self-disclosure.
EXAMPLE: The experience and perpetuation of grief is often culture-bound. If you are seeing someone of the Jewish faith that just lost her mom, it is important to know that she might grieve for an entire year based on religious underpinnings.
Ethnicity
the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition. Ethnicity generally describes a group’s sense of possessing a shared identity informed by a common language, culture, or religion. Racial and ethnic identities often overlap
EXAMPLE: The Martinez family came to therapy because the father was hearing voices and sounds no one else heard. The therapist talked about the father’s problems in front of the entire family, using the son to translate, without realizing that the family’s Hispanic ethnicity would prohibit the son from taking on such a role.
Ethnocentrism
the belief that one’s culture or ethnicity is superior to everyone else’s culture or ethnicity. Ethnocentrism becomes a problem when the dominant culture is ethnocentric and attempts to assimilate all other cultures into it. The therapist must be careful not to perpetuate any ethnocentrism in their practice.
EXAMPLE:: A clinician has a client referred to them by a doctor for refusing to undergo a surgery the doctor deemed necessary. The client is an indigenous Native from the Amazon and acknowledges he has a medical issue, but does not believe in Western medical practices. He believes the medicine men in his village were wiser and more skilled. The ethnocentric therapist considers this idea ignorant and encourages him to go through with the surgery, ignoring his personal, culture bound beliefs.
Filial piety
A prominent virtue in Asian society put forth by Confucius, this is the belief that the children should submit to and take care of their parents, even after they become adults. Children are expected to strive for family goals and to not engage in behaviors that would bring dishonor to the family. Therapists must take this into consideration when counseling Asian Americans,
EXAMPLE: Sue went into medical school because her Asian parents really wanted her to and also the family needed the money. The therapist understood that this was reflective of the idea of filial piety and Sue was just putting the needs of the family above her own. She was careful to not label it as dysfunctional.
Minority
an ethnic, racial, religious, or other group having a distinctive presence within a larger society and who differ from the dominant and majority culture in one or more ways, including but not limited to culture, race, sexual orientation, or country of origin. Being a member of a minority in a mono-cultural society often puts one at a significant disadvantage
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EXAMPLE: As a white therapist, I am part of the majority in the US. I must recognize that I may not understand a minority group member’s unique experiences and I must be open to learning about it from that member.
Multicultural Competencies
multicultural competence has three components: awareness, knowledge, and skills. Awareness includes knowing one’s own culture, views, biases, and comfort levels of various backgrounds. Awareness can be developed via awareness activities change the person’s attitudes, opinions and personal perspective (i.e. journal in multicultural class, immersion)
Knowledge refers to the therapist’s knowledge of the cultural group both currently and historically, their worldview, and any barriers that group may have faced. Can be developed by learning facts and seeking accurate data (i.e. research, reading books). Skills refer to implementing culturally appropriate interventions and receiving and sending information in ways that take into account cultural background; also recognizing one’s own personal limitations. Skill-building activities involve the application of awareness and knowledge in applied settings with diverse clients (i.e. seeking supervision on new skills)
EXAMPLE: As a therapist striving towards achieving multicultural competence, I might tell a minority client that I am seeing to educate me on the value of family within his/her culture. Recognizing that you do not know everything is part of awareness which is a multicultural competency.
Multicultural Counseling
this is an umbrella/framework for counseling in which the therapist defines goals and uses treatments that are consistent with an individual’s cultural values. The therapist must recognize that their values may not be the same as that of their culturally diverse client, but that does not give them the right to pressure their client to accept their values. The therapist must also recognize some behaviors considered deviant in Western society are not considered deviant in the culture of their clients.
EXAMPLE: When Howard was treating his Asian American client, he was careful when they were defining goals that he did not impose his individualistic values on his client, who had more of a collectivist perspective. This was consistent with Howard’s practice of multicultural counseling.
Multicultural perspective in counseling
This perspective recognizes the differences among and within clients and how their cultures may impact their values. According to this perspective, a counselor must maintain awareness of their own cultural biases and values in order to prevent them from interfering with interactions with culturally diverse clients. Counselors are also responsible for cultivating knowledge about different cultures and skills that are useful with culturally diverse clients.
EXAMPLE: Josie, a therapist that uses a multicultural perspective, was raised in an impoverished environment, in which the family constantly struggled to put food on the table. Because of her experience, she feels many who are wealthy are wasteful and unappreciative. She must be careful of this bias when working with wealthy clients so she does not harbor resentment or negativity towards a client
Oppression
involves the abuse of power whereby a dominant group engages in unjust, harsh, or cruel activities that perpetuate an attitude or belief that is reinforced by society and maintained by a power imbalance. The dominant culture frequently will use its power to marginalize, silence, and otherwise subordinate other cultures. Cultural oppression may occur without the oppressor realizing it; in light of this, the therapist must take steps to be very aware of any ways they may be oppressive to culturally diverse clients
EXAMPLE: Marvin is a young gay male coming to therapy for depression. He explains the constant oppression he has suffered at school, at his part-time job, and even in his family.
- he is being bullied and taunted at school.
- He has been both physically and verbally attacked by his peers.
- When he first came out, he lost his job at the book store because the owner didn’t approve of his “lifestyle.”
- He feels as though he is being bombarded daily with negative stereotypes of homosexuality from the media, family and friends, and religion.
Pluralism
needs ex
a condition in which numerous distinct ethnic, religious, or cultural groups participate fully within the dominant society while still maintaining cultural differences; show mutual respect and tolerance of each other. These groups may interact with each other without conflict or assimilation. In order for this to occur, the dominant culture must recognize the importance of other cultures
EXAMPLE:
