The present study examined the relationships between African American graduate students' experience of the imposter phenomenon and their racial identity attitudes, worldview perspectives, academic self-concept, background characteristics, and graduate school environment. It was hypothesized that racial identity, Afrocentricity, academic self-concept, and certain demographic characteristics would differentially predict imposter feelings. The results of multiple regression analyses revealed support for some but not all of the hypotheses.

This review of the literature examines White counselor self-awareness as an important variable in developing multicultural competence. The self-dimension discussed in this article includes worldview, cultural values, and racial identity. It is suggested that counselor self-awareness is a prerequisite to developing multicultural competence and that an in-depth understanding of these factors may improve the delivery of mental health services to culturally diverse client populations. he cultural value system inherent in traditional counseling the-Electronic Journal: To print this article select pages 14-18. TOC

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This study investigated the relationship between White racial identity development as proposed by J. E. Helms (1995) and the personality constructs Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Participants were 105 White college students (55 women and 50 men) who were administered the White Racial Identity Attitude Scale (J. E. Helms & R. T. Carter, 1993), the NEO Five‐Factor Inventory (P. T. Costa & R. R. McCrae, 1992) and the New Racism Scale (C. K Jacobson, 1985). Results indicated that White racial identity was differentially related to several personality constructs and aversive racism. Implications for future White racial identity research are discussed.

The perceptions that Black men (N = 52) have of "parallel" dyads involving a Black male client and a White male counselor were examined in a vicarious participation analogue design. As defined by Helms (1984b) (Pedersen, 1987;Ridley, 1984;Sue & Sue, 1977). Proposed counselor barriers have included characteristics such as the counselor's insensitivity to racial and ethnic issues and inadequate training (Arrendondo-Dowd & Gonsalves, 1980;Katz, 1985;Sue, 1981). Nevertheless, the focus on either the client or the counselor as the problem overlooks the mutual contributions of each to the counseling process. Therefore, adequate investigation of cross-racial counseling requires an examination of aspects of the process as defined by the combination of counselor and client race-related characteristics. The Black and White racial identity literature provides a theoretical framework by which the racial identity attitudes of both client and counselor can be used to evaluate the quality of the counseling process and outcome. This study examined the perceptions that Black men have of cross-racial counseling dyads using a racial identity paradigm.Racial identity refers to a sense of group or collective identity based on one's perception that he or she shares a common racial heritage with a particular racial group (Helms, 1990). According to Helms, the development of a racial identity for White as well as for Black individuals occurs via a process that occurs in stages. These models are not stage models in the usual sense of the term because most people are thought to possess attitudes, affections, and behaviors associated with each of the stages. Nevertheless, one's identity may be predominately grounded in a particular stage. In addition, it may be possible for individuals to recycle through earlier stages (Parham, 1989). Helms (1990) has also suggested that stages are hypothetical constructs whose presence can be inferred from their attitudinal correlates.The White racial identity developmental process consists of the following stages (and related attitudes): (a) contact, which reflects an obliviousness and naïveté about race and racial issues; (b) disintegration, characterized by an awareness of one's Whiteness and guilt or inner conflict associated with the reality of racial injustice; (c) reintegration, represented by an overt White supremacist belief system that denigrates other racial groups; (d) pseudo-independent, which reflects an intellectualized understanding of Whiteness and non-White people; (e) immersion-emersion, characterized by the desire to define Whiteness in positive and nonracist terms; and (f) autonomy, the stage which represents racial transcendence and in which Whiteness and Blackness are valued and respected (Helms, 1990).The respective attitudes associated with each Black racial identity stage are (a) preencounter, characterized by a Euro-American frame of reference wherein persons act or think in ways that devalue Blacks; (b) encounter, results from experiencing some critical event that challenges or...