Abstract
This paper provides a critical reflection about Counselling and Diversity. The course focused on understanding multicultural counselling strategies. The topics included in the following reflection include personal bias identification and management, intercultural understanding in the context of providing service to diverse clients, how to understand a client’s unique world view, and the importance of counsellor self-care with a focus on wellness.
As a counsellor reaching out to a diverse community of clients I will need a diverse toolkit to prepare myself for the experiences. Inside my multicultural toolkit are tools to keep my bias in check, tools for understanding diverse clients, ways to understand my clients unique world view, and tools to ensure that I take the best possible care of myself.
The importance of personal wellness tools cannot be stressed enough. By improving my own wellness I can guide my clients through the same journey towards improved wellness. The best thing I can do for myself is to strive for improvements in my own lifestyle. Taking care of your spirit requires a great deal of reflection. That reflection period is where I began to understand my own biases, reflect on my own learning gaps, and analyze self-improvement strategies. Taking care of your mind involves education and understanding a path I started when I began school. Finally, taking care of body’s most basic needs will ensure I stay well enough to help others and reduce my risk of burnout.
1) Personal Bias
The best way to keep my personal bias regulated is to educate myself about multicultural sensitivity in the practise of counselling. I need to become aware of my own biases and learn to manage my attitude and behavior in order to provide my best service to my clients.
Counselors are not immune to biased behaviours and the first step I need to take is to accept my own biases. Once I can identify my own biases I can begin to arm myself with the tools I need to serve my multicultural clients.
The traditional role of counselling is to listen to clients, place the locus of control around the client and then ask them to change their behaviour. This colonial role can be interpreted as being biased in its own right. I need to adapt my view of my client’s situations and consider the variety of factors that are contributing to the situation. Alternating my counselling style for clients can allow the focus to be placed on wellness. Focusing on improving the wellness of the clients mind, body and spirit changes the atmosphere of the counsellor/client relationship.
I need to learn to communicate with my multicultural clients. Not only does language cause a barrier but context and understanding can often be difficult when communicating across cultures.
2) Diverse Clients
A key part of dealing with particularly hard to understand clients from diverse backgrounds is patience, empathy and experience. I often have more issues with communication when working with diverse clients. Strong accents often cause me to misunderstand the speaker. I get frustrated with myself when I can’t help my clients because I can’t understand them. So far I have encountered African and Spanish accents that I found hard to understand. I need to improve my listening skills in order to become a better counsellor.
Personally that frustration is the hardest issue for me to overcome. That frustration is also something that diverse clients can easily relate with. I need to learn to manage my intercultural communication frustration. According to Fall & al. (2013) the best way to improve my intercultural communication is with practise and by keeping my mind open to learning new things. My adventure seeking personality gives me an edge in intercultural relations. I need to keep my open mind and seek out new ways to understand people who are harder to understand. By immersing myself in multicultural experiences I can improve my level of confidence in practise.
3) Clients World View
Different people come from different roots leading to their individual view on the world. Though we all have a different view of the world every view is valuable. The best way to understand a client’s unique world view is to ask them and appreciate their answers. Most clients will describe their position in a dialogue. For example, if you were to ask a client where they come from and how their origins affect their life they will often begin painting a picture of their world view. Valuing the unique backgrounds and world views expressed by clients is key to establishing empathy.
In the rare situations where clients are in extreme distress, but the source is hard to identify art therapy may provide clues towards the cause of the issues the client faces. Newell-Walker (2002) in “Getting a picture of the client's world-view: art-making and subjectivity as evidence” described his five-year study of hard to understand clients who were experiencing a great deal of frustration. Over the five-year period, Newell-Walker used multiple sessions of art therapy to gain insight into the cause of the situation faced by the study’s nine volunteer participants. The participants gave clues about their issues by describing abstract art using metaphors. The words the participants used to describe the images often reflected their own world view. Appreciating the view of the world that clients express makes the client feel valued. Learning to see the world through the eyes of another offers its own unique challenges but allows counsellors to tailor to the needs of their unique client.
4) Self-Care
I can help anyone else if I don’t take good care of myself. As a counsellor, I need to set an example. To ensure that I am in top shape for helping my clients, I need to take good care of myself first. Starting from the basics I need to ensure that I eat healthily, get plenty of rest and drink enough water. I need regular exercise and fresh air. I need to treat myself from time to time. I need to know my limits and not push myself beyond my boundaries. I need to know when to ask for help, both in my personal struggles and in my professional career. Starting with these basic steps of self-care, I can ensure that keep my mind and body in a position to help someone else.
An article in the Journal of Individual Psychology titled “Refresh Your Mind, Rejuvenate Your Body, Renew Your Spirit: A Pilot Wellness Program for Counselor Education” researched the importance of addressing personal wellness. The research described the importance of counselor wellness as being required in order to meet their professional responsibilities. If counsellors cannot address their own wellness needs how can they guide improved the wellness of their clients. The study reported that an increased level of distress goes hand in hand with decreased levels of wellness (Wolf & al., 2014, pp. 57-75).
Counselling diverse clients provides practitioners with a wealth of experience. Diverse people offer counselors the opportunity to experience new situations and learn. A counselor needs to begin their journey towards helping others by learning about themselves, the first step to managing their own personal biases is to accept and understand themselves. I need to prepare and educate myself on a variety of topics and techniques that will help me help others. I need to understand my own world view before I can begin to understand the world view of my client. Most importantly I need to invest in myself in order to be of help to others. My clients see the way I treat myself and will easily call my bluff if I don’t take good care of myself.
References
Choudhuri, D. D., Santiago-Rivera, A., & Garrett, M. (2011). Counseling & Diversity. Cengage Learning.
Fall, L. T., Kelly, S., MacDonald, P., Primm, C., & Holmes, W. (2013). Intercultural Communication Apprehension and Emotional Intelligence in Higher Education: Preparing Business Students for Career Success. Business Communication Quarterly, 76(4), 412-426. doi:10.1177/1080569913501861
Newell-Walker, U. (2002). Getting a picture of the client's world-view: art-making and subjectivity as evidence. Journal Of Social Work Practice, 16(1), 43-54. doi:10.1080/02650530220134755
Wolf, C. P., Thompson, I. A., Thompson, E. S., & Smith-Adcock, S. (2014). Refresh Your Mind, Rejuvenate Your Body, Renew Your Spirit: A Pilot Wellness Program for Counselor Education. Journal Of Individual Psychology, 70(1), 57-75.
