Integrating Diversity into Clinical Psychology

1. Integrating Diversity into Clinical Psychology Neha K. Dixit, M.S. Doctoral Candidate Dept. of Clinical & Health Psychology

2. The Effective Psychologist • The most important instrument you have is YOU • Your living example, of who you are and how you struggle to live up to your potential, is powerful • Be authentic • The stereotyped, professional role can be shed • If you hide behind your role the client will also hide • Be a therapeutic person and be clear about who you are • Be willing to grow, to risk, to care, and to be involved

3. Personal Characteristics of Effective Counselors • Have an identity • Respect & appreciate themselves • Able to recognize & accept own power • Open to change • Make choices which affect their lives • Feel alive & make life-oriented choices • Authentic, sincere & honest • Have a sense of humor • Make mistakes & admit them • Appreciate the influence of culture • Sincere interest in welfare of others • Maintain healthy boundaries

4. The Counselor’s Values • Be aware of how your values influence your interventions • Recognize that you are not value-neutral • Your job is to assist clients in finding answers that are most congruent with their own values • Find ways to manage value conflicts between you and your clients • Begin therapy by exploring the client’s goals

5. Multicultural Counseling • Become aware of your biases and values • Attempt to understand the world from your client’s vantage point • Gain a knowledge of the dynamics of oppression, racism, discrimination, and stereotyping • Study the historical background, traditions, and values of your client • Be open to learning from your client

6. Issues Faced by Beginning Therapists • Achieving a sense of balance and well-being • Managing difficult and unsatisfying relationships with clients • Struggling with commitment and personal growth • Developing healthy, helping relationships with clients

7. If the world were a village of 100 people, there would be… 57 Asians21 Europeans14 from the Western Hemisphere (north and south)8 Africans 52 would be female 48 would be male70 would be non-white, 30 white70 would be non-Christian, 30 would be Christian89 would be heterosexual, 11 homosexual59% of the entire world's wealth would be in thehands of only 6 people and all 6 would be citizensof the United States 80 would live in substandard housing70 would be unable to read50 would suffer from malnutrition1 would be near death, 1 would be near birthOnly 1 would have a college education1 would own a computer

8. What influences your clinical skills/counseling? • Your positionality (perspectives resulting from an intersection of multiple social identities) • Your experiences as a function of dynamics created by and resulting from membership in multiple social groups

9. Complexity of Multiculturalism

10. Multicultural Issues • Biases are reflected when we: • Neglect social and community factors to focus unduly on individualism • Assess clients with instruments that have not been normed on the population they represent • Judge as psychopathological ~ behaviors, beliefs, or experiences that are normal for the client’s culture

11. Values and the HelpingRelationship • Value conflicts: • To refer or not to refer • Referrals appropriate when moral, religious, or political values are centrally involved in a client’s presenting problems and when: • therapist’s boundaries of competence have been reached • therapist has extreme discomfort with a client’s values • therapist is unable to maintain objectivity • therapist has grave concerns about imposing his or her values on the client

12. Role of Spiritual and Religious Values in Counseling • Spirituality refers to: • general sensitivity to moral, ethical, humanitarian, and existential issues without reference to any particular religious doctrine • Religion refers to: • the way people express their devotion to a deity or an ultimate reality • Key issues: • Can the counselor understand the religious beliefs of the client? • Can the counselor work within the framework of the client?

13. Knowledge of Client Cultures • Differing Worldviews • Views about family • Cooperation vs. Competition • Time Orientation • Communication Styles • Locus of Control

14. Knowledge of Client Cultures • Beliefs about psychological problems and therapy • Sources of problems • Internal vs. External • Expectations about how therapy works • Counselor’s role • Client’s role

16. Clinician Attitudes • Overt racist • overtly hostile, homophobic, racist, ageist, sexist, judgmental (should stay out of the field) • Covert prejudice • tries to hide negative, stereotyped opinions but client picks up cues • Culturally ignorant • lack of knowledge based on homogeneous background (need to learn about other cultures before working with them)

17. Clinician Attitudes Cont… • Color blind • denies differences: "I don’t recognize differences; I treat everyone the same." • Culturally liberated • recognize, appreciate, and celebrate cultural differences; strives for freedom from judgments of diverse clients

18. Assumption • Cultural diversity is a fact of life and efforts to build a common culture inevitably privilege the dominant culture (Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000)