Читать книгу Counseling and Psychotherapy - Группа авторов - Страница 68

The multicultural orientation (MCO) framework was developed to help counselors with their therapeutic process from a multicultural orientation. Particularly, the MCO framework was developed for integration with existing therapy approaches with an emphasis on the counselor’s cultural humility as a “way of being” rather than as a series of steps or processes (Davis et al., 2018, p. 90). Traditional theories were developed with dominant White, Western, male, industrialized, heteronormative, and English-language perspectives. “Social justice theories can help contextualize these traditional counseling theories and models” (Singh, Nassar, et al., 2020, p. 248). At the same time, there are limitations because many theories, even when adapted, have underlying paradigms, such as individualism, that are difficult, if not impossible, to remove.

The MCO framework rests on three pillars: cultural humility, cultural comfort, and cultural opportunity (Davis et al., 2018). Along with cultural humility as described earlier, cultural comfort relates to how a counselor is “at ease, open, calm, or relaxed with diverse others” (Davis et al., 2018, p. 92). Cultural opportunity means that counselors respond to the cultural sharing and expressions of a client with curiosity, engagement, and a sense of affirmation and that they ask about the client’s cultural beliefs, values, and ways as opportunity. In addition to contextualizing traditional theoretical orientations from a social justice perspective, counselors can also bring an ease about culture and cultural difference to the sessions, can explore culture with curiosity, and do so as an other-oriented way of being in regard to the social location and lived experience of clients.