Читать книгу Ethics in Psychotherapy and Counseling - Kenneth S. Pope - Страница 77

Building cultural competence in clinical practice often begins with effective training. Many programs in psychology and related fields historically have not provided adequate training on how to effectively integrate cultural knowledge into assessment and therapy. Adames et al. (2013) posit that

While psychology as a discipline maintains that diversity and multiculturalism training is important, some departments do not adequately address it as a central topic, emphasize its importance by making it a requisite, or provide a sound framework for effectively addressing diversity and multiculturalism (p. 3).

To what degree is culture and diversity respected, valued, welcomed, and its potential, approached in positive and creative ways? To what extent is it approached in ways that divide, isolate, set people against each other? For instance, several studies support how conversations about culture, ethnicity, and race provoke and exacerbate uncomfortable feelings including defensiveness, anxiety, anger, helplessness, blame, and invalidation (Bell, 2003; Helms & Cook, 1999; Sue et al., 2011; Utsey et al., 2005). Other scholars posit that when culture is addressed it is at the cost of Students of Color. Franklin (2009), for example, wrote:

Ethnic minority students often felt trapped between, if not victimized by, the roles of cultural educator and student. However, students as cultural brokers in class are often educators without a portfolio in the eyes of professors and fellow classmates. Challenging psychological information being presented that did not accurately represent our experiences could bring … a label as an impudent student. Parenthetically, it was not uncommon to have our personal insights as members of the community also challenged or dismissed by professors or researchers who had no experience with our communities other than their readings in psychology. This was infuriating to many colleagues and students, given their lived experiences … These in class and work experiences were frustrating, intimidating, humiliating, and discouraging to students and subsequently early career professionals in particular. This circumstance continues to contribute to the attrition of Students of Color in training programs and later becomes a deterrent to participation in organized psychology (p. 419; see also Kaduvettoor et al., 2009).

When we neglect how our own worldviews and cultural values influence the ways in which we navigate the world and interact with others—or when we fail to understand and appreciate the role of culture in our clients’ lives and in the work that we do as therapists—we end up straying from the appropriate and helpful to the useless or even oppressive. We cannot operate from a one-size-fits-all approach to training and psychotherapy by applying frameworks and interventions grounded solely in the experiences of the dominant group (Burkard & Knox, 2004; Gómez, 2015; Sue, 2015). The road toward cultural competence, or the ability to develop interventions that are culturally responsive begins by looking inward toward the self and outward toward others.