Counseling and Diversity - Research Paper Example

 Contents Introduction 3 Counseling and Diversity in Context 3 Spirituality as an Ethical Issue in Counseling 4 Personal Reflections 5 Biblical Grounds in Counseling 6 Infusing Spirituality into Counseling 7 Multiculturalism 9 Significance 10 Effective Multicultural Intercession Strategies in Multicultural Counselling 11 Ethical and Empirical Counseling 11 Ethical Considerations 12 Ethical Universalism 12 Ethical or Moral Relativism 13 Conclusion 14 References 15 Counseling and Diversity Introduction With the recent importance on cultural diversity, counselors are challenged to achieve greater knowledge of the diversity of client beliefs and values. “Awareness of clients' spiritual and religious belief may help counselors understand their presenting issues and develop effectual interventions” (Good, 2010). This piece of writing introduces some of the controversies surrounding religion, spirituality, and counseling and emphasizes the significance for counselors to integrate spiritual aspects of cultural diversity with clients. Suggestions are provided for how counselors can become knowledgeable about the spiritual and religious beliefs of clients and how these beliefs can be incorporated into practice (Mintz, Jackson, Neville, Illfelder-Kaye,Winterowd & Loewy, 2009). Counseling and Diversity in Context Counseling is conversational progressions that can be helpful in the improvement of skills that assist to effectively tackle and cope with fears and conflicts. Counseling is for people who are daringly facing their fears, who desire more from their life, who would like to expand their lives and attain goals both in person and professionally. It is a relationship that builds self-confidence (Naipaul, 2003). . Counseling is where an expert will give guidance, opinions based on what the long-suffering are has discussed with them. In a number of ways, a counselor could almost be seen as a director. It is made in a casual and calm environment where the patient is free to talk about what bothers them. They are free to convey their feelings and emotions to a person they know are listening to them. This paper examines the contemporary notions that are related to counseling and diversity. It helps counselors in thinking about the diverse issues encountered by counseling professionals in relation to spiritual, ethical and empirical grounds as used in communities where people live. Research from previous work that is related on the same topic of discussion and statistical analysis was done to arrive at the conclusion of this paper (Mintz, Jackson, Neville, Illfelder-Kaye,Winterowd & Loewy, 2009). Spirituality as an Ethical Issue in Counseling One of the frequently discussed ethical issues in counseling is concerned with multiple relationships. Counselors are supposed to maintain distinct boundaries amid their professional and personal lives when dealing with clients and to do away with multiple relationships (Tyre, 2008). This recommendation has particular side effects for those counselors operating in small world or rural communities, wherein the counselor is likely to enjoy less personal privacy than those who are working in suburban and urban communities (Tyre, 2008). One area that may be open to inspection in a counselor’s life is her or his participation in spiritual or religious activities in the local community. Consequently, a group of people or community members do form impressions concerning the counselors ways based on these observations. This may be problematic particularly when the counselor’s values or behaviors are taken to be incongruent with dominant community values or norms. On the other hand, rural counselors are supposed to expect that they cannot completely do away with dual relationships; but, there are, many ways in which such relationships can be anticipated and managed (Morgan, 2005). Personal Reflections In this paper I advocate that there are a multitude of empirical and ethical issues embedded in the question of how counselors address biblical issues when working in small world communities. Although I recognize the many positive issues of working and living in such communities as counselors, there are some counseling challenges. Perhaps most obvious is the counselor’s struggle to balance her or his professional and personal lives in light of one’s greater visibility in these environments and to come up with counseling multicultural competence. The following recommendations can be used by educator’s counselors 1. Counselors should always anticipate the respective ethical challenges that are associated with highly visible lives. 2. Counselors are supposed to recognize and be prepared to use a biblical ground in counseling. Empirical and ethical decision making model (Moodley & West, 2005). When one is confronted with questions concerning multiple relationships, boundaries of competence and confidentiality. 3. Counselors are supposed to become conversant with community values and ways for them to thoughtfully consider the effect of their professional and personal behavior on the school community and the lives of her future and current clients. 4. Ethical counseling necessitates one to be conversant with one’s own word view including biblical grounds, as well as being aware of the diverse world views that exists within one’s rural community (Naipaul, 2003). 5. In light of their significance in promoting one’s condition, counselors should advocate for multicultural competence and all members in a community (Parikh, 2000). Biblical Grounds in Counseling Affirmatively, Christian counselors identify and uphold the innate, God-given dignity of each human being. Human beings are God’s making—in fact, the round off of His creation—and are as a result due all the privileges and respect. Therefore, regardless of how people respond to and confront harmful attitudes and actions, Christian counsellors will convey a loving concern to any client, service-inquiring individual, or anyone encountered in the course of way or ministry, without consideration to race, background, sex, sexual behaviour, socio-economic rank, education, denomination, faith system, morals, or political attachment. God’s love is unrestricted and, at this point of concern, so it is required for the Christian counsellor to be the same. Christian counselors admit that client conflicts are inevitable. In fact, disagreement and confrontation are time and again a central dynamic of the helping progression. One should try to resolve all counseling disagreements in the client's unsurpassed interest. Christian counselors decline to disregard, advocate for, or help the unsafe actions of clients, particularly those that endanger human life from origin to death. Biblically it is agreed that the safeguarding of human life is at all times a main concern value in any professional intervention. The bible was written in such a way that it provides diverse stories and instructional ideas which shade light on God’s style of dealing with human beings. This aids counselors in the professional work of counseling. The bible says that Jesus Christ is the reality (john 14: 6). He is the main focus of God’s revelation. He is the answer to any problem (john 3: 16). Through him, we can better understand our life now, and we can look forward to eternal life (john 6: 35, 47). Infusing Spirituality into Counseling The codes of ethics obligate counselors to gain knowledge and recognize how their own cultural, tribal, racial identities influence their attitudes and thinking. Definitely, there are persons who believe that addressing spiritual and religious matters in counseling should be left to clergies for the reason that a lot of counselors do not have sufficient training to take in hand such concerns. To concur with Helminiak's (2001) analysis that ignoring religious issues in counselor guidance may facilitate inconsiderateness by a counselor to regulars spiritual and religious concerns. In addressing matters of professional identity, counselor instructors can model the significance of acknowledging and considering clients' spiritual beliefs and customs by openly discussing the function of religious studies in the specialized identities of counselors-in-training. There are just as many explanations of diversity, as there are persons. Cultural diversity in counseling is appreciating, and equally utilizing the distinct talents of all individuals. Taking into Consideration of the cultural diversity in a counseling period is broader than just taking into consideration of race and gender, as it takes into consideration of various ways in which people disagree from each other. Not only are gender and age taken into consideration when considering diversity, but language, cultural backgrounds, and race are reviewed. When people are able to accept disparities in other individuals, they gain the tendency to accept persons, and, appreciate these disparities. Diversity affects and is equally affected by every person in a session, the client and the counselor. Many people if not everyone has prejudiced; this is in human nature. As humans, people are constantly reviewing, judging and evaluating. Therefore in the case of counseling, it is crucial or essential to recognize one’s own biases, and prejudices as being his or her, based on a person’s own backgrounds, and frame of reference. There are four main elements that require to be known, in order for counseling to be successful or effective. 1. Knowledge: This refers to the amount of information that the counselor knows about others from different backgrounds. In some regions of the globe, people greet new individuals with affectionate gestures like hugs, warm handshakes, or smiles. In some nations, these gestures are taken to be rude, and an individual wouldn't approach another, upon initial meeting, with a smile or a hug, until they get to be familiar with them. The amount of information a counselor has about a background that is diverse from his or her own, is a crucial consideration when one is thinking about counseling in cultural diversity. 2. Understanding: Comprehending or understanding means how much a person comprehends how others do feel and why they do behave as they do. If you look at a person in the eye, and they do not return the gesture, then one may consider this has being rude, when in fact it is a reflection of culture that says that it is rude to look at a person in the eye. 3. Awareness: This is how much a person owners and values other people’s diverse characteristics and behaviors. This comprise of respect and tolerance of other people’s differences. Tolerance is a comprehensive follow-through from empathy perspective, and means how accepting one is, of other people who are different. When one accepts other people’s differences, then they can accept the idea that all individuals should be permitted to exhibit their tendencies and cultural background, through their behavior (Mintz, Jackson, Neville, Illfelder-Kaye,Winterowd & Loewy, 2009). 4. Behavior: this basically refers to how effective a person is able to relate to a person whom he or she differs with. Appreciating and recognizing differences in people of all ages, backgrounds and races, is a major element to successful counseling in a culturally diverse population. Counseling a diverse group of people, demands that people acquire a personal knowledge of individual stereotypes and biases, and, work to accept and understand these differences. Knowledge or having the information, awareness, behavioral interactions, and understanding are the key components required, for successful counseling sessions in a diverse population. Multiculturalism It is a term which incorporates within various meanings, beliefs or values. The most important basics of multiculturalism are summarized below: Multiculturalism has been explained as the fourth strength in counseling, one which sets off the behavioral and humanistic enlightenment of human behavior. Hansen (2010) explained multiculturalism as a wide collection of numerous groups with no grading, comparing, or positioning them as better or inferior than one another and without rejecting the very distinctive and complementary or even conflicting perspectives that each grouping brings with it. One of the most essential debates within the ground has to do with how this meaning relates to precise groups within the environment of a culture. This description leads to the addition of a large number of variables, for example, sex, age, place of residence, learning, socioeconomic factors, associations, ethnic group, ethnicity, language, belief, making multiculturalism common to all counseling relationships (Mintz, Jackson, Neville, Illfelder-Kaye,Winterowd & Loewy, 2009). In spite of how one describes the word or the degree to which the idea is restricted or broadened in a particular situation, multiculturalism comprises of a world of complex aspect. There are four dimensions of culture that in counseling; 1. Power distance--the degree to which a culture acknowledges that authority in institutions and organizations is circulated unequally. 2. Indecision avoidance--the degree to which members of a culture feel endangered by vague or ambiguous situations. 3. Individualism--a social outline in which inhabitants are required to take care of themselves and of their instant families only. Collectivism means a social framework in which inhabitants differentiate amid out-groups and in-groups, expecting their in-group to care for them and in substitute for that owe allegiance to it. 4. Masculinity--the degree to which the foremost values within a society are assertiveness, wealth and things, considering for others, quality of existence, and people. A number of common counselor characteristics are essential, but not adequate, for those who involve in multicultural counseling. To be successful, a counselor must be able to: 1. Express value for the client in a way that is felt, understood, acknowledged, and valued by the client. Value may be communicated either in words or nonverbally with tone quality or eye contact. 2. Express understanding for culturally dissimilar clients. This engross being in a position to place oneself in the place of the other, to know the point of view of the other. 3. Personalize her or his observations. This implies that the counselor distinguishes that her or his observations, information, or insights are right only for her or himself and that they do not take a broad view to the client. Significance Guidance in multiculturalism for counselors has been rising in significance due to the increasingly varied society that subsists across the globe. Neither is nations made up of a single culture, nor do they comprise of only inhabitants who are born to that nation, but are crammed with persons from all parts of the globe. These persons bring with them their own values, way of life and cultural connections. Even so, customary counseling practices have recommended that all people can obtain counseling in the same way, without considerations for differences in cultural background. The National Guidance Research Forum points out that this move toward counseling in relation to a multicultural culture does not hold up the requirements of all people. As a result, training in multiculturalism for counselors is imperative (McLennan, Rochow & Arthur, 2001). Effective Multicultural Intercession Strategies in Multicultural Counselling Multicultural counseling efficiency is improved when the counselor uses techniques and strategies and describes goals consistent with the life experiences and society values of the client. So far, training programs persist to foster the trust that certain notional approaches may be equally useful with all groups (Magee, 2002). Ethical and Empirical Counseling One might admit the confinements of philosophers as counselors, yet still permit them a place in the counseling world. Rather than focusing on the emotional issues of the client, a philosopher could assist a person facing an ethical dilemma. One philosopher called Marinoff sets out one incidence of a man who has to make his mind up whether or not to hospitalize his mother, who had been ill due to a degenerative neurological disorder. This difficult choice, which he had so far been incapable to decide, was causing the man to feel worried and anxious. By philosophical study of the condition, Marinoff assisted straighten out what was at problem in making this choice, and calmed the client's sense of indecision and anxiety (Laungani, 2004). Philosophers are definitely experts at arguing about ethics, but that in itself does not make them ethical experts, for the reason that being morally sensitive may not be very much associated with technical philosophical expertise. One should certainly not expect ethical philosophers and ethicists to be particularly good people. Knowing about morality does not make one a high-quality being any further than knowing about fluid dynamics makes one a first-class swimmer. Philosophers might even make harms worse by over intellectualizing what are essentially simple issues (Laungani, 2000). Ethical Considerations It would be naïve to reject the ethical basis of any counseling experience. One expects the therapist or counselor to work from the utmost moral standards. Although since the whole field of ethics is riddled with disparities and dissensions it is hard to arrive at the unsurpassed course of action still in a relatively inoffensive situation (Helminiak, 2001). There are two major issues of concern. Ethical Universalism Is there one general code of ethics to which individuals all over the globe from time immemorial subscribe, viz., Ethical Universalism? In the past three thousand years, Socrates raised an essential question: how shall peoples live their lives? Socrates supposed that virtue was the most significant feature in people’s attempts to lead a good life. Virtue or good value as closely associated to knowledge. No man, Socrates argued sins knowingly. If persons got knowledge they would turn out to be virtuous. Knowledge to Socrates was derived on the basis of unity and was acquired by the dialectical way. Counsellors would thus give people knowledge enabling them to know what is good and bad (Dickson, Jepsen & Barbee, 2008). Ethical or Moral Relativism Are ethical judgments comparative to one’s upbringing, intellect, personality, and above all the customs, which one is born and socialised into? People’s conceptions of morality and ethics, which are a result of people’s enculturation, may differ from those of others (Levy, 2002). Are there intent ways by which one ethical principle can be tested against an added? Is it well again to put to death a convicted killer by a lethal injection or by stoning the being to death? Or not to put to death the murderer at all! This raises the incommodious problem of ethical relativism, a crisis to which no universally tolerable solutions have thus far been presented. In such it is then encouraged that the counsellors’ conceptions of morality should not be in variance with those of their clients. Conclusion The pursuit of the thought – in spite of of its logistics - of building counselling bridges across cultures is not unlike the quest for the Holy Grail. People of dissimilar cultures, as well as immigrants of today seem to vary from past generations in that they seek to keep hold of many of their cultural ethics and are less concerned in becoming homogenized within the United States culture. This focus can make a potentially difficult situation for both the client and counselor who may vary significantly in their own cultural morals. For thriving psychotherapy to take place, it is vital for therapists to be culturally aware of clients and keep away from stereotyping (Choudhuri , Rivera-Santiago & Garret, 2002). References Choudhuri, D.D., Rivera-Santiago, A.L. & Garret, M.T. (2002). Counseling and diversity. Retrieved 15 April 2012 from . Dickson, G., Jepsen, D., & Barbee, P. (2008). 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