Week 9 Response to Classmates

Please no plagiarism and make sure you are able to access all resource on your own before you bid. One of the references must come from Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2016). You are expected to include at least one scholarly and peer-reviewed resource outside of those provided in the readings for each discussion post. Read a selection of your colleagues’ postings. I need this completed by 04/27/18 at 6pm. Please put some thought into each responses. There are 3 responses needed in this post. Support each response with references.

Respond by Day 5 to all of my colleagues’ postings in one or more of the following ways: Provide      an alternate perspective on the influences of spirituality and religion on      the client’s attitudes, perceptions, values, beliefs, and behaviors. Provide      an alternative perspective on how spirituality and religion might affect      how the counselor could conduct this counseling session. Share      an insight from having read your colleague’s posting.

Note what you have learned and/or any insights you have gained as a result of the comments your colleagues made. If a post already has two responses, you must choose another post.

Please thoroughly read the Discussion Posting and Response Rubric attached to evaluate both the posts and responses. There are four components evaluated for each Discussion Post and Response.

1. Responsiveness to Discussion Question /9

2. Critical Thinking, Analysis, and Synthesis /9

3. Professionalism of Writing /5

4. Responsiveness to Peers /9

To get the highest grade possible, ask yourself if you have SURPASSED the following standards as you re-read your posts BEFORE submitting them:

1. Response to Peers: Do my peer responses indicate that I have read, thought about, and selectively responded to my colleague’s discussion posts in a complex way? Are my responses engaging, insightful, reflective of current events, or relevant to some experience I have had? Rather than just demonstrating agreement with the ideas presented by a colleague, or randomly quoting some resource in order to satisfy a formulaic inclusion of a citation and a reference, you are encouraged to provide an engaging response post which specifically builds upon the ideas of your colleague in an original and substantial manner, including relevant professional resources that go beyond what you are required to read for the course. 

1. (C. Sch)

Culture and the biases people place on different cultures can affect the counseling relationship. Worldview is something that every counselor should be aware of for themselves, and also when starting a new relationship with a client, they should talk about how they see the world. Leaving personal biases out of this part of the relationship is challenging, but it is imperative to have a successful session each and every time.

Counselor’s Worldview

           If the counselor doesn’t know their own worldview, it could cause problems within the counseling relationship. They need to be strong and confident within themselves before they start to try and tell others what to do. I think it is also important to know how other people view their own culture. The counselor must know the stereotypes of their own culture, and the client’s culture in order to truly understand both sides of the relationship (Hays, 2016). By examining their own worldview, it will help them guide the conversation when figuring out their client’s worldview. By doing so, the counselor will be able to understand how their client is communicating with them (Hay, 2016).

Assumptions of Culture

           When a client enters a counseling relationship, they either come in blind or have only heard good things about a particular counselor. They usually don’t know what to expect either way, unless someone has told them about the professional. Culture, race, and ethnicity can lead to difficulties in adaptation (APA, 2013). If the counselor puts for their own assumptions of culture onto the client, they could think the counselor is racist, which could damage the counseling relationship and not be good publicity for the counselor. It is important to allow the clients’ time to speak and tell their story (Sue & Sue, 2016). The counselor shouldn’t assume any truth behind what they hear from others.

Summary

           Culture is a huge part of every counseling relationship. Counselor’s need to be aware of all cultures and races of people that might come into their office. It’s also important to know what is important to those people, and what values they hold true, before assigning any interventions for that client. There are also stereotypes for every culture, race, gender, and religion that exist in the world. Counselors must also be mindful of those when starting a new counseling relationship.

References:

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.

Hays, P. A. (2016). Addressing cultural complexities in practice: Assessment, diagnosis, and therapy (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2016). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

2. A. Oxt)

A person’s worldview is considered not only the relationship a person believes they have with the world, but also their behaviors, actions, position in society, values, culture, and beliefs (Sue & Sue, 2016). Everyone has their own worldview. Counselors must understand their worldview, but not allow that worldview to interfere with helping a client. The purpose of this discussion is to evaluate how a counselor’s worldview might affect assessment and diagnosis of a client, as well as explain how cultural assumptions can adversely influence a client and the therapeutic relationship.

Counselor’s Worldview and Assessment

           Cultural oppression is when a person correlates negative traits to another person of a different culture or worldview (Sue & Sue, 2016). This type of oppression can happen to counselors if they are not aware of their own worldview and the differences to that of the client’s worldview. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fifth edition (DSM-5, 2013) discusses the cultural formation for counselors before diagnosing a client. The importance discussed in this formation is understanding cultural identity of a client, how the client constructs their experiences, cultural vulnerabilities and resilience, how culture is related or different between client and counselor, and the overall assessment from a cultural perspective.   

It is imperative for a counselor to understand a client from the client’s perspective and to be culturally competent. A counselor must be self-aware to ensure they understand any biases or stereotypes they hold. If a counselor holds a worldview belief about a certain religion, ethnicity, or culture, they could misdiagnose a client based on that worldview. This is known as diagnostic overshadowing (Sue & Sue, 2015).

Cultural Assumptions and Adverse Impact

Developing a good therapeutic relationship with clients is the most important aspect of counseling. To develop a good relationship, a counselor needs to be self-aware, autonomous, empathetic, and a good listener. There are many aspects to building this relationship and one important key is cultural competence. A counselor must not make assumptions based off of their worldview and/or opinions. Understanding the worldview of the client especially from a cultural standpoint, is important to ensure assumptions are not made and that the counselor understands the client from the client’s perspective. The DSM-5 (2013) notes that even for counselors of the same culture as the client, the perspectives and backgrounds could still differ in many ways. The counselor may make assumptions because of the cultural compatibility between the client and counselor. This could lead to a lack of trust for the client towards the counselor because the client begins to feel the counselor is not listening to them. Or the counselor could inadvertently offend the client and that would seriously damage the therapeutic relationship.

Summary

           The counselor worldview is important from a perspective that the counselor needs to be self-aware and understand their worldview. Without that understanding, the counselor could cause irreparable damages to the therapeutic relationship and/or misdiagnose a client. Sue and Sue (2016) list several ways a counselor can cause problems with the therapeutic relationship and diagnosis; “confirmatory strategy, attribution error, judgmental heuristics, and diagnostic overshadowing” (p. 432-433). They go on to state “we must be aware of our beliefs and values as we work with clients and their specific presenting problems” (p. 433).

 
 

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.

Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2016). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

3. (K. Den)

The Influence of Culturally Bound Syndromes and Worldview on the Counseling Relationship

           We are all affected by culture.  It is ingrained into us, sometimes without us even realizing it.  To be better counselors, we need to be aware of the bounds of our cultural knowledge and our worldview and how these affect our counseling.  This discussion will address one way in which a counselor’s cultural worldview might affect his or her assessment and diagnosis of a client’s situation and explain how assumptions based solely on culture could adversely influence the client and the counseling relationship.

Counselor’s Cultural Worldview Affect on Assessment and Diagnosis

           Counseling theories have been widely conceptualized in Western individualistic terms (Sue & Sue, 2016).  Many people who are culturally diverse and seek out counseling do not embrace these views.  This is something, as a counselor, which must be kept in mind when providing therapy to people.  Many people in the United States, especially white Americans, have been raised with the ideals that if one works hard enough, one will succeed.  These ideals highlight the Western values of rugged individualism, the Protestant work ethic, and the ideas of status and power (Sue & Sue, 2016).  While counseling other white Americans, it may be easy to conduct the assessment and make a diagnosis as the counselor and client have a shared culture.  When culture is not shared, however, the counselor must tread carefully so as to not allow his own biases and assumptions to color his assessment and diagnosis.

           There are many cultures which are more community based and whose values are very different from white, Western values.  For example, people who do not speak English as their native language, may not respond to intake questions in a sequential way or may have difficulty articulating what they want to say (Hays, 2016).  Assuming a client speaks and understand English well can lead to misdiagnosis as the client might use the wrong word or phrase when describing something.  Their phrasing may be different as well as they are used to constructing sentences in a different way.  As a counselor, one may need to slow down and allow the client to take more of the lead.  While this is risky, as not all the questions may be answered, it will strengthen the therapeutic alliance and allow the counselor to obtain the needed answers once trust has been established (Hays, 2016).  Sometimes, it is better to allow the client to answer some questions in their own time, rather than risking the therapeutic alliance and have the client not return.  This is important to keep in mind for diagnosis as well.  If one is using an assessment to help diagnosis the client, one should find out if the assessment is available in their native language, as it will be easier for them to understand and ensure better accuracy.  Contacting the original author of the assessment to ask if they know of one in the client’s native language is a good place to start (Lenz, Gomez Soler, Dell’Aquilla, & Martinez Uribe, 2017). 

Adverse Influence of Assumptions Based on Culture

           Making assumptions based solely upon a client’s cultural background has implications for the client and the therapeutic alliance.  For example, Asian Americans have been both lauded as being a model minority and attacked for being uncivilized heathens and for unfair workplace competition (Tan & Dong, 2000).  This discrimination and prejudice form the background upon which Asian Americans function and form a self (Tan & Dong, 2000).  Should a counselor make assumptions about an Asian client based upon these assumptions, it could cause harm to both the client and the therapeutic relationship.  It is important to keep in mind that Asian Americans function and form a self around the discrimination and prejudice mentioned, but assuming that all Asians are very smart, hardworking, and create unfair competition in the workplace does a disservice to the client and shows the counselor’s biased worldview (Tan & Dong, 2000; Sue & Sue, 2016).  Should an Asian client come in seeking treatment for depression or anxiety, a counselor with such a biased view could attribute it to the client not enjoying their work as a physician, when the true problem may be culturally related.  The client may have gone into medicine because that was what was expected of them while their true passion lay in the arts.  By treating only part of the problem, because you have a biased view of the client, you are unintentionally harming that client.  It may be that, without the biased view, you could help the client incorporate their passion for the arts into their profession, thus helping them battle their depression.  As a counselor, one has to keep open to learning the person within the context of their culture and not seeing a biased view based upon discrimination and prejudice.  Not taking culture into account damages the therapeutic relationship.  By not taking the culture in which the client was raised into account, this risks mistrust by the client, which leads to them terminating counseling early.  If they do not feel valued and do not feel like they are truly being heard, they will not return.

Conclusion

           Taking the culture of the client into account is important for correct assessment, diagnosis, and the therapeutic relationship between client and counselor.  Assessment and diagnosis relies upon the cultural context of the client, not the counselor.  Understanding the client’s cultural context helps establish rapport and builds the trust needed for a strong therapeutic alliance.  The client needs to feel valued and heard by the counselor in order to establish trust and rapport.  If the client does not feel valued, they will terminate counseling early and may not seek out another counselor.  Thus, it is important as counselors to ensure we are not judging our clients based upon prejudice and that we are taking into account their cultural context, even if it means we admit to not knowing something and asking for their help to understand.

References

Hays, P. A. (2016). Addressing cultural complexities in practice: Assessment, diagnosis, and therapy (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Lenz, A. S., Gomez Soler, I., Dell’Aquilla, J., & Martinez Uribe, P. M. (2017). Translation and Cross-Cultural Adaptation of Assessments for Use in Counseling Research. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 50(4), 224-231.

Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2016). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Tan, S., & Dong, N. J. (2000). Psychotherapy With Members Of Asian American Churches And Spiritual Traditions. In P. S. Richards & A. E. Bergin (Eds.), Handbook of psychotherapy and religious diversity (pp. 421-444). American Psychological Association.

Required Resources

Readings

· Hays, P. A. (2016). Addressing cultural complexities in practice: Assessment, diagnosis, and therapy (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

o Chapter 6, “Creating a Positive Therapeutic Alliance” (pp. 101-123)

o Chapter 7, “Conducting a Culturally Responsive Assessment” (pp. 127-160)

o Chapter 8, “Using Standardized Tests in a Culturally Responsive Way” (pp. 161-194)

o Chapter 9, “Making a Culturally Responsive Diagnosis” (pp. 195-223)

· Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2016). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

o Chapter 5, “The Impact of Systemic Oppression: Counselor Credibility and Client Worldviews” (pp. 145-177)

o Chapter 7, “Barriers to Multicultural Counseling and Therapy: Individual and Family Perspectives” (pp. 215-249)

o Chapter 8, “Communication Styles and Its Impact on Counseling and Psychotherapy” (pp. 251-281)

o Chapter 10, “Non-Western Indigenous Methods of Healing: Implications for Multicultural Counseling and Therapy” (pp. 321-351)

o Chapter 13, “Culturally Competent Assessment” (pp. 429-455)

· American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.

o “Cultural Formation” (pp. 749 –759)

· Document: The Case of Mrs. Hudson (Word document)

Optional Resources

· State University of New York, New Paltz, Institute for Disaster Mental Health. (n.d.). Tip sheet on Haitian culture.

· Desrosiers, A., & St. Fleurose, S. (2002). Treating Haitian patients: Key cultural aspects. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 56(4), 508–521.

· Nicolas, G., DeSilva, A. M., Grey, K. S., & Gonzalez-Eastep, D. (2006). Using a multicultural lens to understand illnesses among Haitians living in America. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 37(6), 702–707.

 
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