Briefly explain, with examples, how each of the following acts as a barrier to multicultural counseling: ethnocentric values of counseling theories, counseling professionals’ personal beliefs and thinking styles, and the lack of equity and access to mental health services some members of society.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Most existing counseling theories were developed by scholars from the mainstream European American cultures. Such theories are not suitable for use with cross-cultural clients because they extol the values and worldviews of dominant groups that are ethnocentric in nature including rugged individualism and independence. Counseling practices are based on these Eurocentric theories. Thus many minority groups who do not subscribe to these cultural-bound values may not seek counseling where their behaviors may be invalidated or pathologized. The counseling professionals’ personal beliefs and thinking styles may also act as barrier to minorities seeking or staying in counseling. Such personal beliefs and thinking styles come from socialization that may be incompatible with the life experiences of people from minority groups. For example, those who believe in the “American dream” may not realize that the playing field is not level for all or that everybody does not start at the same place. Consequently, the counselor may perceive clients from minority cultures who are unsuccessful in realizing the American dream as lazy with the risk of contributing to the invalidation of whatever success the client might have achieved. The counselor’s thinking style may also act as a barrier to effective multicultural counseling. For example, a counselor who adopts a linear thinking style may see client behavior and attitude at a particular moment in time as constant, and then use it to predict behavior. Linear thinking does not take client context into consideration in diagnosis and interventions that may be harmful to clients. Lack of equity and access to mental health by members of minority cultures constitutes a barrier. Examples of equity and access include insufficient mental health services, cost, fragmentation of services, social stigma toward mental illness, mistrust, poverty, lack of insurance, and differences in language that deter minorities from utilizing counseling services.