Abstract
Notably, interracial couples and their families have faced various challenges including rejection and being stereotyped. These challenges have resulted in increased trauma and developmental delays among interracial people. The most common misperception about interracial couples is that one partner is black while the other one is white. The rate at which interracial marriages are growing in the US has increased steadily. Considering that the United States legalized interracial marriages, a high growth rate in interracial marriage is a significant move. The demand for interracial counseling is expected to rise as the number of multicultural couples increase.
Education of counselors on the complexities of developmental problems that interracial couples face is essential to enhance their capacity to serve their clients. Counselors need to develop greater interests in the demographic information that can add to the knowledge of the diversities in the population of interracial families. Each spouse in an interracial relationship brings differences which pose difficulties for both individuals. These differences are due to the fact that each spouse comes from different ethnic and cultural background. Multicultural marriages are significant to promoting interracial co-existence, and these couples should be appreciated rather than being subjected to stigma. Multicultural counseling becomes essential to build courage and peaceful development of interracial spouses and their children. Therefore, relevant education is required to prepare interracial counselors for their great task in promoting the development of interracial communities. This paper will discuss the relevance of various topics to the understanding of multiculturalism or the applicability of the topics to the multicultural counseling.
The population of the United States has become more diverse, resulting in the shift of counseling profession to focus on attending the diverse population. The process of counseling has become more complicated as the counselors strive to familiarize themselves with the current and anticipated demographic trends (Lee, 2014). Also, these counselors are striving to improve their competence as they prepare to serve the changing needs of diverse clients.
The population of interracial couples is growing, and the challenges they encounter are usually more complex compared to issues of couples from same-race. According to Hay and Erford (2014), interracial couples face various unique challenges like criticism, lack of moral support from their families, and social stigma. Additionally, these couples have great fear since they don’t know how their children will adjust biracial identities. Furthermore, interracial couples experience great pressure from social rejection and public perception concerning them.
Counselors for interracial couples should incorporate various considerations when performing the counseling of individuals from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds (Poulsen, 2015). Additionally, there should be increased review of the counseling methodologies to ensure that effective counseling services are offered to interracial couples to facilitate the development of the intercultural community. Due to high growth rate of interracial population, there is a need to recognize the counseling of intercultural and interracial couples as a unique discipline and conduct intensive research that will ensure beneficial counseling of these couples.
Body
1.0 crisis counseling
Individuals may experience various events in their life which lead to different forms of distress like behavioral, physical, and emotional stress. Crisis counseling entails the provision of counseling services through intermediate or short- term interventions to individuals with various forms of stress. Interracial couples encounter the crisis in various ways such as social stigmatization which produce stress (Poulsen, 2015). Therefore, the study of crisis counseling is relevant to equip counselors with support strategies needed to help multicultural couples in reducing both the psychological and physiological impacts of trauma. Additionally, crisis counseling helps to deal with the current status of individuals. Interracial couples suffer serious exposure to psychological, behavioral, and physiological stress which usually causes mental illness (Waldman & Rubalcava, 2005). Therefore, the understanding of crisis counseling helps interracial counseling professionals to acquire knowledge and skills needed to help their clients in managing their current challenges.
Willow (2008) found that crisis counseling does not provide psychotherapy, but it offers intermediate interventions to assist clients in acquiring mental stability and support. Therefore, the understanding of crisis counseling is relevant to interracial counselors since it improves their skills required to provide short-term counseling assistance to interracial clients. The main objectives of crisis counseling are to facilitate the restoration of adaptive functioning, mitigate the effects of events, and restoration of recovery for individuals with normal reactions to different abnormal events (Poulsen, 2015). Interracial spouses must develop adaptive mechanisms to accommodate new cultures. Thus, the topic of crisis counseling is fundamental to assist multicultural counselors in handling individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds.
2.0 Multicultural therapeutic techniques
Handling multicultural couples require the counselors to have an in-depth understanding of the various therapeutic methods. Mainly, Biomedical and psychotherapy are applied during the counseling to treat the clients. Understanding of various therapeutic techniques is essential to interracial counselors because it enlightens them on different approaches required for the treatment of multicultural clients. According to Willow (2008), the understanding of psychoanalysis, as well as psychodynamic approaches to mental therapy, is fundamental to create stronger insights to multicultural counselors and to enhance their counseling techniques.
Additionally, the study of multicultural therapeutic methods is crucial to prepare interracial counselor by providing them with opportunities to explore various techniques such as cognitive, behavioral, integrative, and client-centered approaches to counseling that are highly needed in their career. The techniques acquired through the study of multicultural therapeutic methods are of paramount importance to nurturing professional interracial counselors. Babbitt (2013) argued that interracial couples present different challenges that must be handled in different techniques. The integrative technique is particularly essential to facilitate the incorporation of multicultural couples in communities which have strong objections to interracial marriages. Therefore, studying multicultural approaches to counseling has a great significance as the increasing population of interracial families generates high demand for interracial counselors in the United States.
3.0 Gender identity/ sexuality
Multicultural spouses come from different backgrounds with varying perceptions of gender role. An interracial marriage results in biracial children, who are usually confused because they lack a strong sense of cultural identity (Seshadri & Knudson-Martin, 2013). When two individuals from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds agree to enter into a spousal relationship, interracial counseling becomes an indispensable prerequisite to preparing the counselors for the duty of harmonizing the differences in perceptions of sexuality and gender role between the interracial couples. Research has revealed that there is a strong link between the competence of interracial counselors and their level of understanding of gender identity and development (Jordan, Lovett, & Sweeton, 2012). Multicultural training on sexuality is crucial to enhance the effectiveness of interracial counselors in enlightening the interracial couples to adapt to new gender roles and to uphold personality that manifests an understanding of gender identity.
4.0 Social justice and counseling
Social justice entails the manner in which opportunities, resources, and privileges are distributed within a society. Interracial couples often face challenges of social stigmatization, discrimination, and rejection from the society (Hays & Erford, 2014). They are usually not accorded the social justice they deserve because their positions in the society are low. An understanding of the need for social justice is critical for counselors, particularly the multicultural counselors to help interracial couples cope with their conditions of life. Interracial counselors strive to address the challenges facing multicultural relationships and promoting the development of interracial communities by addressing the distribution of social justice. Therefore, the study of social justice is crucial to the understanding of principles of multicultural counseling.
5.0 Counseling interracial couples and families
Babbit (2013) argued that although counselors’ understanding of challenges related to race is important, the awareness of social stigmatization and scribed categorization experienced by the clients is lacking among some counselors. The study of interracial counseling is instrumental to the understanding of multiculturalism in the sense that it prepares the counselors to develop effective mechanisms for overcoming barriers of the counseling process. Additionally, when individuals are exposed to the concepts of interracial counseling, they develop a better understanding of issues associated with multiculturalism. Hence improve skills of multicultural counseling. Besides, the study of interracial counseling highlights factors that interact to produce resultant effects on the development of perceived racial identity and therapeutic changes.
Counselors need to be aware of the status of the development of the racial identity for their clients to be able to develop a more supportive environment for counseling (Babbit, 2013). In addition, counselors need to understand the global view of cultural identity to help them in the establishment of effective frameworks for identifying their clients within various contexts. These frameworks will also enable the counselors to understand the effects of culture, race, and acculturation on the counseling process. Therefore, the study of interracial couples and the development of families becomes an essential part of multicultural counseling.
6.0 Narrative therapy
Maxwell and Henriksen (2012) demonstrated that biracial persons may experience continuous changes of their identities while they still enjoy healthy lives. The attempts to integrate them into the community may result in a more precise conceptualization of the clients who are undergoing therapy. One of the methods that interracial counselors can use to facilitate the widespread view of multicultural clients is by using the method of narrative therapy. This type of therapy has wide application in multicultural counseling. It helps the interracial clients to separate themselves from their life challenges by making cultural assumptions of various factors that affect their development of racial identity (Maxwell & Henriksen, 2012).
7.0 Addiction counseling
The interracial couples, as well as their families, face various challenges that lead to some of them indulging in drug abuse to relieve themselves of bitterness and stress. The abuse of drugs tends to deteriorate their situations than placing them in more healthy living conditions as they think (Park, 2014). Exposure to counseling of individuals who are addicted to substance abuse is, therefore, a good prerequisite for professionals who are preparing to handle multicultural individuals since some of them will be addicts of drugs also. Additionally, the topic of addictive counseling prepares individuals to facilitate the behavior modification for the multicultural clients in order to integrate them into the communities.
8.0 Sexism
An understanding of the complexities of the challenges associated with sexism that multicultural families face is fundamental to the development of the best approaches towards their treatment (Babbit, 2013). Sexism in the context of interracial counseling entails the various types of challenges that interracial families face. Some of the challenges with roots on sexism include social discrimination and being stereotyped. Because multicultural counselors deal with clients who have been subjected to sexism, having some previous experience on the same is a big advantage. Thus, the study of sexism has great relevance in the understanding of the idea of multiculturalism.
9.0 Blended family counseling
Some background experience on the counseling of blended families is instrumental to the provision of counseling services to multicultural couples. Blended families include those families with children from the current as well as the previous relationships. A blended family may involve spouses from different races and multiracial children (Hays & Erford, 2014). Therefore, a study on these families will prepare the learners to deal with similar cases when they become multicultural counselors. Additionally, the study of counseling of blended families prepares potential multicultural counselors to the specimen that will dominate their career (Hays & Erford, 2014). They get an opportunity to acquire better understanding of the treatment of biracial and multiracial children, resulting in the development of better skills needed during multicultural counseling.
10.0 Immigration and acculturation
The study of immigration involves the movement of people to live in foreign countries. Acculturation entails the various ways in which individuals attain cultural modification through adaptation of traits from another culture. Additionally, acculturation involves the merging of different cultures due to extended contact with individuals or groups from diverse cultural background. Multiracial counseling involves the provision of counseling services to multicultural individuals. People from different cultural backgrounds meet and interact as a result of immigration.
When two persons with varying cultural views enter into spousal relationship, each must adjust to the others’ culture (Lee, 2014). Therefore, acculturation becomes a relevant concept in the study of multicultural counseling. The understanding of the concept of acculturation as well as immigration constitute a fundamental aid to the understanding of multicultural counseling since this counseling entails helping interracial individuals acquire each other’s culture through cultural modifications.
11.0 Grief counseling
The adoption of new cultures involves various life adjustments to cope with changes. The establishment of spousal relationship with an individual from a different culture or race entails making critical decision. Additionally, these individual face serious challenges such as being stereotyped and social rejection. Furthermore, the children of interracial families need counseling due to confusion as a result of biracial culture that does not give them a specific cultural identity (Maxwell & Henriksen, 2012). Therefore, multicultural individuals usually have grief that is triggered by these life changes and the challenges they face. Thus, an understanding of principles of grief counseling becomes highly applicable to multicultural counseling professionals since it equips them with skills of performing psychotherapy to interracial clients. Moreover, the feeling of grief due to other factors like death tends to occur to everyone irrespective of their cultural affiliation. Therefore, the study of grief counseling will not only help the counselors but also other individuals who may engage in multicultural issues.
12.0 Multicultural spirituality
Multicultural training on spirituality is crucial to help multicultural counseling professionals expand their scope to include some religious aspects in their roles. Spirituality entails some values that create sense of inner connections with others (Park, 2014). Thus, multicultural spirituality involves inner connections between individuals from different cultures. An understanding of multicultural spirituality is helpful to promote the overall understanding of multicultural counseling. Interracial individuals tend to have varying inclinations to spirituality which must be harmonized during the interracial counseling (Park, (2014). Additionally, the value differences that exist in multicultural couples as well as their families must be brought into harmony to help them co-exist. Therefore, an understanding of the spirituality differences among the multicultural individuals has significant applications in the multicultural counseling.
The level of spirituality is positively related to the ability to cope with life dynamisms (Hays & Erford, 2014). Thus, the level of clients’ spirituality influences their assessment to distressful situations and enables them to build high levels of self –esteem. Thus, studying multicultural spirituality is relevant to interracial counselors in helping them to understand the spiritual differences in their clients and how they can harmonize these differences to promote the integration of multicultural individuals and the development of interracial community. Besides, an understanding of multicultural spirituality enables the interracial counselors to develop skills of inculcating the feeling of self- appreciation, self-worth, and the development of spiritual identity among multicultural individuals. This helps the interracial couples to live meaningful lives despite the challenges. Therefore, the relevance of multicultural spirituality in the study of multiculturalism is great and cannot be underestimated.
13.0 Counseling clients with disabilities
Disability entails various forms of impairments, limitations to activities, and restrictions to participation. Disability occurs randomly, and it can affect any person. However, some individuals have greater risks of becoming disabled or bearing children with disabilities due to their life conditions. According to Saravanan and Rangaswamy (2012), interracial individuals have great tendencies to develop various forms of disabilities particularly mental disabilities due to high exposure to mental stress. Additionally, lack of support from families and the community may lead to distress, mental depression, and impairments to their children due to betrayal of indigenous cultural beliefs (Willow (2008). Therefore, understanding of therapeutic techniques for handling clients with various forms of disabilities is an important prerequisite to understanding multiculturalism.
14.0 Family dynamics
The development of relationships involves interactions. People from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds tend to have difficulties of interacting effectively. Additionally, some cultural beliefs do not encourage multicultural interactions and interracial marriages (Lee, 2014). Therefore, the development of spousal relationship between multicultural individuals has many challenges that demand multicultural counseling services. Family dynamics involves various patterns in which relations are established.
Essentially, different races have different systems of interactions (Danes & Yang, 2014). Since each system has its unique dynamics, the understanding of different family dynamics is relevant to the development of interracial families. Therefore, counselors with in-depth knowledge of family dynamics will be required to help multicultural individuals who intend to enter into spousal relationships as well as the interracial couples. Additionally, the knowledge of the topic of family dynamics is useful in counseling interracial individuals to help them strengthen the bonds of their relationships.
15.0 Counseling children
Children tend to develop different forms of impairments that require physiological as well as psychological therapies. Young people tend to have difficult experiences that cripple their ability to deal with their feelings. Thus, they require extra support to help them cope with life difficulties (Saravanan & Rangaswamy, 2012). Biracial children have unique challenges that require special attention of counselors. Hays & Erford (2014) found that biracial children tend to be confused due to lack of specific cultural identity and sense of belonging.
Early exposures to diagnosis and treatment of depression as well as the understanding of other approaches to child therapy is crucial to prepare multicultural counselors for great task ahead due to the growing population of interracial marriages. Additionally, the knowledge of child counseling is relevant to facilitate cultural identity development among multicultural individuals as a result of multiracial counseling. Children define the future of a nation in various ways. Therefore, the topic of children counseling will have great application to the development of multiculturalism and interracial communities.
16.0 Ethical issues in multiculturalism
Ethical considerations have become increasingly essential in the field of counseling in the United States (Kaplan, 2014). The cultural dynamisms and demographic variations have necessitated the improvements in the observation of ethics among the professionals in the counseling field. Counseling practitioners have been provided with a framework known as ADDRESSING model that guides them in performing their roles (Kaplan, 2014). Ethics in interracial counseling entails the use of philosophy of morality and choices that individuals make within specific contexts of their interactions. Ethical issues involve behaviors that counseling professionals need to uphold. An understanding of ethical issues is fundamental to improve the effectiveness of interactions between multicultural counselors and their clients.
Counseling involves performing various forms of therapies after receiving clients’ information. This information needs to be treated with the highest possible level of confidentiality. Additionally, the counseling process involves various duties such as fidelity, justice, beneficence, and autonomy. The study of ethics in multicultural counseling has great relevance to the practice of interracial counseling. It prepares the professionals for their roles in promoting the co-existence of multiracial individuals and effective development of interracial communities. In addition, the topic of ethical issues provides individuals with an in-depth understanding of the ethical codes used by interracial counseling professional known as ACA (American Counseling Association codes of ethics), which cover various measures of accountability, protection, stabilization, and motivation of the multicultural counselors and their clients. Therefore, the understanding of ethics in multicultural counseling is an essential preliminary for the practice of interracial counseling by the counseling professionals.
Conclusion
Counselors can provide great motivations and encouragements to interracial individuals, which can make them develop more trust in the ability of the counseling process to solve their problems. Counselors should be authentic right from the beginning to the end of the counseling process to build a sense of trust among their clients. Also, multicultural counselors need to demonstrate a great understanding of both cultural and interracial knowledge throughout the counseling to prepare their clients to cope with the challenges of interracial marriages. The understanding of various topics within the field of multicultural counseling is significant to the preparation of counseling professionals for their roles. As the population of interracial families increases greater knowledge of multiculturalism will be needed to help interracial couples in coping with life challenges.
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