Counselling Week 5

Counselling and Cultural Competence

• Novice counselors often have ambivalent feelings when working with clients from diverse backgrounds and should discuss their anxieties with colleagues.
• Inexperienced therapists should value being themselves and establish genuine connections with clients.
• New counselors should seek educational and training experiences to enhance their ability to work with diverse clients and understand their own cultural background.
• It is important for counselors to recognize their limitations and make referrals when necessary, as well as to develop a sense of humor in therapy.
• Cultural variation has been underrepresented in psychology, and inclusive representation is essential for accurate evidence, theories, and frameworks of psychotherapeutic intervention.
• Creating environments that foster cultural resilience involves various actions such as displaying diverse artwork and literature, acknowledging country, and using indigenous languages.
• It is important to respect and use people’s names and pronouns, and counselors do not need to share the same cultural background as their clients to be effective.
• The lecture aims to engage with equity, diversity, and inclusion, consider the role in EDI, and look at counseling, EDI, and resilience.
• The CRRR-focused counselor acts with a sense of purpose, skill, and respect for the diversity of clients and seeks to foster resilience in clients facing social injustices.
• Clients are empowered when they feel heard, understood, and respected, and counseling should focus on addressing specific immediate issues to facilitate further action.
• Resilience is both a short-term and long-term goal of effective counseling, particularly when the therapist upholds a trauma-based approach to their sessions.
• Counseling aims to help clients resolve issues, handle future difficulties, become more competent, and value themselves more, contributing to client resilience.

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Counselling

• In this lecture, the focus is on engaging with equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and considering the role of a counsellor in relation to EDI.
• The potential dilemma arises when personal beliefs and attitudes conflict with the principles of empathy, leading to discomfort when confronted with minority groups.
• Therapists must work with people from diverse backgrounds, necessitating an appreciation of cultural responsivity, relevance, and reinforcement for various aspects of diversity.
• Cultural responsivity involves mindfulness for diverse cultural values, recognizing the impact of social structures, and disrupting ongoing inequities.
• Cultural relevance entails introducing, discussing, and supporting dialogue on topics relevant to historically excluded populations, as identified by the group themselves.
• Cultural reinforcement involves respecting, valuing, and celebrating diverse cultures, including their heritage, language, and worldviews.
• The counsellor's own self is an important instrument in counselling, serving as a model for clients and requiring self-reflection and awareness of cultural values and perceptions.
• Counsellors must understand their own culture to better understand others, avoiding judging others based on their cultural standards and avoiding assumptions and generalizations.
• The person of the therapist and the therapeutic relationship are crucial in effective therapy, and creating a safe environment for clients is essential.
• Counsellor characteristics include having an identity but being open to change, being passionate and sincere, respecting others' values, and being deeply passionate about their work while maintaining healthy boundaries.
• Effective counselling involves considering the impact of culture on the client's functioning and being aware of the counsellor's own cultural conditioning, biases, and values.
• Becoming a culturally responsive, relevant, and reinforcing counsellor involves challenging the idea that one's own values are automatically true for others.