Multicultural & Social Justice Counseling

Quiz looking over from week 1 to week 7 of Multicultural & Social Justice Counseling

Race

Describing the pigmentation of the skin and identifying the culture/social organization.

Ethnicity

Understanding the background and knowledge about any culture.

Dr. Burch 5 Big Ideas for Multicultural

#1 - MSJCC

#2 - Racial Identity

#3 - Theories of Oppression

#4 - Intersectionality

#5 - Deep Structure of Culture

Dynamic Sizing

Not stereotyping, learning the culture without judgement, and understanding their cultural background.

Intrapersonal

How counselors view themselves culturally, including their biases, strengths, limitations, growth, beliefs, values, attitudes, and assumptions. Having a level of openness to feedback from others

Interpersonal

a way of being with others characterized and understanding others from cultural experience and background and to understand their life.

Culture

• behaviors derived from simultaneous membership and participation in a variety of contexts, such as language, rural, urban, or suburban, settings, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, age, gender, religion, nationality, employmen, education, occupation, political ideology, and stage of acculturation. 

Nigrescene

• A sense of group or collective identity based on one’s perception that he or she shares a common racial heritage with a particular racial group. Very essential to mental and emotional health.

How do we go about being culturally competent?

• Self-awareness/ Other awareness

• Knowledge/ life-long learning

• Specific skills and interventions

• Scientific mindedness

• Dynamic Sizing

Cultural Competence

• Awareness (Attitudes/Beliefs)

• Knowledge

• Skills

• Action/ Advocacy

Etic

Culturally Universal, disorders appear in all cultures/societies (ex: panic attacks, depression, etc). Western concepts of normality/abnormality across cultures

Emic

Culture-specific, determining factors to behavior disorders. Lifestyles, cultural values, and worldviews.

Broaching

clinical skill where a therapist intentionally brings up race, ethnicity, culture, gender, or other identity factors into the conversation

Microaggression

Commonplace verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults to people of color.

ADDRESSING

• A- age/generational influence

• D-developmental disabilities

• D-disabilities acquired in life

• R- religious/spiritual bkgrnd.

• E- ethnic and racial identity

• S- socioeconomic status

• S- sexual orientation

• I- indigenous heritage

• N-national origin

• G- gender

RESPECTFUL

• R- religious/spiritual

• E- economic class bkgrnd

• S- sexual identity

• P- psychological dev

• E- ethnic/racial bkgrnd

• C- chronological disp

• T- trauma

• F- family history

• U-unique physical char.

• L- language and location

Intersectionality

explains the ways that race and racism intersect with other social identities and forms of oppression to create unique and distinctive experiences of oppression and disadvantage.

Oppression Dynamics

• Oppression is Pervasive and Systematic

• Oppression has multiple manifestations

• Systems of oppression have consequences for everyone

• Oppression operates on multiple dimensions

• We are socialized to accept systems of oppression as normal

• Oppression in internalized by both dominant and minoritized groups.

• There is no hierarchy of oppression

Oppression

A system that maintains advantage and disadvantage based on social group memberships and operates, intentionally and unintentionally, (consciously/ unconsciously) on individual, institutional, and cultural levels.

Individual Unintentional

A high school teacher assumes all of her students are interested in dating classmates of the other sex.

• A teacher who prides himself on being fair to all of his students calls on boys to answer questions three times more often than he calls on girls.

Individual Intentional

Someone uses racial slurs to refer to Blacks and Puerto Ricans.

• A parent asks to have his child moved out of a gay teacher’s classroom.

Institutional

policies, laws, rules, norms, and customs enacted by organizations and social institutions that disadvantage some social groups and advantage other social groups. These institutions include religion, government, education, law, the media, and the health care system (intentional and unintentional).

Institutional Unintentional

Students celebrate Christmas in school, but not other winter religious holidays. • A town hall building does not have an entrance that is accessible to people using wheelchairs.

Institutional Intentional

A state adopts a law prohibiting the legal recognition of lesbian and gay relationships.

• An employment agency steers Blacks toward low-paying, domestic, or custodial positions.

Social/cultural

Social norms, roles, rituals, language, music, and art that reflect and reinforce the belief that one social group is superior to another (intentional and unintentional).

Societal/cultural Unintentional

Standards of beauty for women are based on white norms: blond, fine hair; blue eyes; and fair skin.

• A belief in individual merit and hard work being rewarded by economic success leads to an assumption that poor people are lazy and undeserving.

Societal/cultural Intentional

: English is designated as the “official” language in the United States.

• European culture is assumed to be superior to other cultures.

5 Faces of Oppression

Exploitation, Marginalization, Powerlessness, Cultural Imperialism, and Violence.

Exploitation

the systematic transfer of resources (such as land, wealth, or labor value) from one group to another.

Marginalization

the prevention or limitation of full participation in society through exclusion from, for example, the job market, health care system, public benefits programs, or community activities.

Powerlessness

a deprivation of the ability to make decisions about one’s living or working conditions.

Cultural Imperialism

the valuing and enforcement of the dominant group’s culture, norms, and characteristics.

Violence

includes physical, sexual, and emotional violence, and the threat of violence, as well as policies and structures that condone violence.

5 Domains of Deep Structure of Culture

Ontology (nature of reality), Axiology (value orientation), Cosmology (relationship to the Divine), Epistemology (systems of knowledge & discovering truth), and Praxis (system of human interaction).

Dimensions of Nonverbal Communication

• Proxemics- use of personal space

• Kinesics- bodily movements

• Paralanguage- vocal cues

• High and low context, context vs content

Proxemics

perception and use of personal/interpersonal space

• Culture/race influence distance in personal space

• Some cultures are okay with closeness

• Violation may cause withdrawal, anger, conflict

• Counselor may misinterpret client’s closeness

Kinesics

refers to bodily movements

• facial expressions, posture, gestures, eye contact

Kinesics vary by culture

• In Japan, a smile may mean discomfort

• Latin Americans shake hands with vigor

• Eye contact varies by culture/race

Paralanguage

refers to other vocal cues used to communicate

• Loudness of voice, pauses, silences, hesitations

• Varies by culture

• Can communicate a variety of features

• Age, gender, emotional responses, race, sex

• Therapist may misinterpret silences in conversation

• Can prevent client from elaborating further

Low/High Context Communication

• I say what I mean, and I mean what I say

• Do as I say, not as I do

EMPRICALLY-SUPPORTED TREATMENT (EST’s)

specific medical or psychological therapies that have been scientifically tested and proven to work through strict research

• Made popular by the American Psychological Association (APA)

Empirically-supported treatments must:

• Prove superiority in two/more rigorously controlled studies

• Be equivalent to a well-established treatment in several rigorous and independent controlled studies

• Efficacy in a large series of single-case controlled studies

EXAMPLES: • Cognitive Therapy for Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

• Exposure Treatment for PTSD

• Brief Dynamic Therapy for Depression

• Interpersonal Therapy for Bulimia

• Brief Dynamic Therapy for Opiate Dependence

Empirically Supported Relationship (ESR)

an alliance or bond between a therapist and a client that has been proven effective by scientific research and data.

3 Elements of Therapeutic Alliance

1. Emotional/interpers onal bond between therapist and client

2. Mutual agreement of appropriate goals/changes

3. Agreement of intervention strategies or tasks

CULTURE-BOUND SYNDROMES

• Disorders with a unique combination of psycho/somatic symptoms; recognized as an ‘illness’ in specific culture groups

• Clinicians may dismiss client's symptoms as mental health disorder(s)

• Clinicians risk imposing their own explanations/treatments for client, causing unintentional harm.

Culture in Talk-therapy

• Cultural aspects of psychological distress present in counseling

• Culture influences how psychological distress is perceived 

• Counseling approaches must adapt to client’s cultural beliefs and practices 

Non-verbal communication

• Verbal communication is enhanced/negated by nonverbal cues 

• Can occur outside of conscious awareness 

• Nonverbal communication varies culture to culture