Multicultural Counselling: A Culturally Responsive and Socially Just Approach

A multicultural counselling approach emphasizes intersectionality as a foundation. Culture is central in all aspects of this counselling process between counsellors and clients, with both lived experiences and social context influencing the relationship.

Multicultural counselling focuses on the cultural uniqueness of both the counsellor, client, and their interactions, which may reflect self-defined relationships with dominant and non-dominant cultural identities in community and societal contexts.

To appreciate the complexity and intersectionality of client-counsellor identities, means we may need to reflect on our own upbringing and the messages we received or potentially internalized about our culture and the culture of others. By doing this, we may be able to understand what aspects of our own cultural identities remain less examined. For example, we might consider setting a goal for cultural self-exploration in service of increasing our own cultural self-awareness.

Cultural Sensitivity

Cultural sensitivity is an active process that we can engage in to enhance and demonstrate our consciousness of gender, gender identity, ethnicity, indigeneity, ability, sexual orientation, social class, age, religion, and spirituality. We might also consider the influence of systemic factors and isms on how we view our own and others' cultural identities. Just for a moment, ask yourself the following questions: What are my identity narratives and stories? How might they shape the lens I bring into my interactions and understanding with others?

Relationality

Relationality is a core competency in multicultural counselling. It is our position as a person in relation to others. This may extend beyond family, community, or ancestors; to spirit, land, nature, and elements that are part of all creation. This concept is often referred to as an indigenous worldview in juxtaposition to a Eurocentric or individualist identity. Though, it is not owned or reserved for any one group of people. How does your experience of your identity shape your reactions in relation to others?

Recognizing and Prioritizing Worldviews

Recognizing and prioritizing another person's worldview is another core competency. The intent here is to bring into consciousness the values, assumptions, and beliefs associated with diverse worldviews, rather than elevating one perspective over another. What is important, is the meaningfulness and relevance of the worldview to the particular person, within their cultural context, and in relation to their specific presenting concerns. To reflect on our worldviews, we might consider asking ourselves, which stereotypes are commonly expressed in our family, at school or work environments, and in our community? How might we purposefully increase our cultural awareness to guard against internalizing these stereotypes?

Attending to Class at the Intersection of Identities

It is important to be aware of social class, marginalized identities, and clients’ lived experiences because it improves a counsellor’s ability to attend to a client’s experiences – especially when it comes to things like so-called “negative” or “self-defeating behaviors.” It might be easy to make assumptions or judge people in this way. But we can benefit from understanding that there are multiple elements involved that contribute to the situation.

The elements involved include the way that our system and society has affected people from the outside-in, such as with the struggles and problems, losses, and history of marginalization experienced. Also, we must keep in mind a person’s own sense of internalized mistakes or shortcomings, which includes the ability to be responsible and make changes.

Counsellors need to be able to acknowledge people’s struggles and challenges, while also assisting them in being able to see their options and choices that are available for changing patterns that may be interfering with them living the quality of life that they wish to have.

For example, counsellors can support people who identify as working-class, by assisting them in dealing with or responding to pressures and struggles, and empowering them to focus on self, strengths, and how to develop practical, realistic ways to create change. This is respecting people’s personal agency and self-determination in life.

Five Dimensions of Cultural Identity

When seeking to understand a client's lived experience and circumstances, there are five dimensions of cultural identity for counsellors to factor into the picture. These five dimensions include:

1.      Social class

2.      Gender

3.      Ethnicity

4.      Age

5.      Indigeneity / Immigration / Refugee Status

Social Class in Cultural Identity

Social class is an important factor in cultural identity for counsellors to be aware of and to bring into their awareness in practice with clients. Awareness can increase our ability to work respectfully across differences. It can offer us reflection about experiences of classism and internalized attitudes.

A starting place is usually to reflect critically on one’s own social class. This gives us insight about our own position and how it relates to differences or similarities for understanding others. We cannot practice competently without being informed about class and classism.

We need to pay attention to the implications of social class and the intersectionality based on gender and sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, indigeneity, and more. It is beneficial to be informed about working-class poverty and worldviews. We need to be able to listen to stories. We are all impacted by social class and our consciousness about class position.

Impacts of Social Injustice and Client-Counsellor Social Locations

Social location and lived experience of privilege and marginalization has in some way or another, influenced all of our journeys in life. When counsellors engage with clients, there may be a variety of worldviews, values, and discourses that are represented. It can be challenging to tease apart which ones represent privileged and marginalized views. Often, these aspects of our cultural identity may be fused and intertwined together. By reflecting on and critically analyzing our privileged perspectives, we may become more aware of the potential for marginalizing client perspectives.

Indigenous Historical Trauma and a Decolonizing Therapeutic Framework

One of the first steps in a decolonizing therapeutic framework, is reclaiming a right to safety and reconnecting to the collective lived experience of Indigenous historical trauma. That which our Ancestors lived through, does live in us.

Colonial violence and trauma is disempowering, devaluing, and marginalizing. In Canada, we must remember the implications of the Band Council system, the Indian Act, “Indian Residential Schools,” child welfare and foster homes, Canadian prisons, and more, as they have and continue to deeply impact Indigenous people in Canada.

We must remember and hold with respect, an understanding of Indigenous historical trauma response. This is a survivor complex, an unresolved grief, an intergenerational trauma, an acculturative stress, and an internalized form of oppression. The ongoing loss for those who are affected, is profound.

Reframing Mental Health Symptoms to Affirm Resilience and Strengths

It is of great importance to embrace a framework that is informed with a perspective grounded in Indigenous worldviews and culture. This can help to reframe what is defined as a mental health symptom or disorder, often referenced from the DSM diagnostic tool.

An alternative to pathologizing and medicalizing perspectives about mental health, is to affirm the resilience and strength of Indigenous people who are survivors. We must acknowledge the harms done by colonial and settler society, honouring the brutality they have survived, and valuing with respect the ancestral cultural practices that may be welcomed as part of a person's journey and path of healing.

We must recognize the strength and resilience in so-called symptoms of denial, repression, and dissociation, which are survival characteristics. We can support a rediscovering of one’s history and ancestry as an approach to healing the trauma of being cut of from knowledge of one’s past cultural connections and practices. Working within a decolonizing approach to therapy might also mean weaving in culturally relevant and relationally attuned practices, such as through Elder-led ceremony or rituals, and a reconnection with a positive and energizing sense of who a client is as an Indigenous person. Spiritual practice, relevant to a person’s unique Indigenous cultural ancestry, and Indigenous-led and centred group circles might be other ways to reclaim a connection to cultural and traditional teachings.

Embracing Cultural Responsivity and Social Justice for Professional Identity

There are a number of practices to support counsellors in embracing cultural responsivity and social justice in their professional identities. Counsellors can consider introducing the following practices to build reflectivity in their personal, educational, and work life:

• Cultural humility, competency, and responsivity;

• Multicultural counselling;

• Truth telling or speaking truth to power;

• Acknowledging colonization, challenging cultural assumptions and biases, examining social determinants of health;

• Fostering safety and freedom from discrimination;

• Respecting cultural knowledge about health and healing;

• Enhancing self-determination;

• Inviting collaborative partnerships;

• Holding an open heart and mind;

• Engaging in critical self-reflection;

• Seeking out cultural knowledge and consultation;

• Acknowledging what we do not know;

• Expressing curiosity;

• Equalizing power;

• Earning trust;

• Welcoming feedback;

• Advocating for systems change; and

• Critical thinking, reflective practice, and embracing cognitive complexity.

Enacting Ethics of Collective Accountability

We can enact ethics of collective accountability through an on-going, active process of self-reflection about privileged versus marginalized influences on our ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. We can practice transitioning in each moment from a state of reflection to a state of action; to speak and act from a place that honors truth telling about our cultural identity and social location as it has contributed to oppression and social injustices, directly or indirectly as representative of individuals or groups that have used power and privilege to commit harms against others. We can enact this through on-going work as an ally and advocate in collaborative partnership with others (with their consent and trust) who share cultural identities that are non-dominant and at risk of being marginalized due to the systemic and structural inequities that continue to present barriers. Each one of us has the capacity for moral courage and critical analysis. Together, we can enact a spirit of active solidarity and collective ethics to create relationships of dignity and respect.

Conclusion: Embracing a Human Rights Framework in Counselling Psychology

Embracing a human rights framework in counselling might look like recognizing the daily struggles that people deal with in response to the systemic barriers they face. These things impact people’s sense of safety and well-being. These include the routine and daily issues which have a direct link between human rights, social justice, and mental health and wellness.

This framework might also include a trauma-informed and systems perspective that supports the advocacy, healing, and resilience of survivors of trauma and violence. Human beings are spiritual beings with a spirit and soul. Based on this perspective, human rights are also grounded in spirituality.

An action-oriented view of how to practice human rights might include use of testimony to denounce and narrate violations that people experience. This could involve speaking up instead of remaining silent when others are marginalized. Although this is more of a political tradition, in counselling and therapy, it might be brought to life through assessments, records, documents, and in the relationship exchanged between clients and counsellors.

A human rights framework might change how we define our professional identity as a person who is safe and offers safety in relationship. It might also change our identity as a person who offers equitable counselling services. How does that work? It could involve changing fees for service to sliding scale or donation based. It could include meeting with clients in a variety of home and community settings, not just at a private office where the client is required to come to the counsellor.

Another important feature of the human rights framework, both in practice and as a professional, could include locating problems outside of the person (such as within the structures of the system) and adopting a non-pathologizing approach to issues and problems. Advocating for access to counselling for people who are underserved is also important; and providing these services in a way that is a better match with the person’s cultural identity and primary language. This includes adopting appropriate assessment tools and techniques.

Awareness of and commitment to a trauma-informed approach includes recognizing how the body is affected by and responds to traumatic experience and memory. It emphasizes developing therapeutic relationships that deal with the here-and-now moment. It places great importance on trust between people.

There is a common set of values and principles in a human rights framework that are intended to unite human beings together. The counselling professional and community is in a unique position to embrace these values and principles in relationship with people. However, where we may differ in our views, is when it comes to taking an apolitical versus political position in counselling; as though we are somehow upholding the status quo or not challenging power dynamics that might be oppressive to non-dominant identities. It requires substantial energy and effort to fully focus on respecting and embracing diversity in a way that brings dignity to relationships. To demand that systemic political issues must be addressed in the context of counselling, is not necessarily appropriate in every situation. We can be committed to human rights, creating healthy relationships, and to a healthy world, without taking a specific political position in the client-counsellor relationship.

A counsellor’s role is not to impose their values or to adopt dogmatic political approaches with clients. It is more therapeutic and less political. There is much left for the counselling field to address regarding the relationship between human rights, social justice, and psychology. In the meantime, perhaps we can embrace the idea that psychology and the counselling profession can be grounded in the ethics of human rights principles.