Cultural humility and cultural competence in counseling: An exploratory mixed methods investigation

Abstract

Using an exploratory sequential mixed methods research design, we investigated the relationship between cultural humility (CH) and cultural competence (CC), two concepts that have been widely discussed in the multicultural counseling literature. We first adopted a thematic analysis to explore how 14 experienced counselor educators perceived the CH-CC relationship and identified three preliminary themes. Then, we utilized quantitative analyses to test the hypotheses derived from the qualitative themes, based on a sample of 434 adults who received mental health services. Both qualitative and quantitative results supported that CH and CC (a) share conceptual alignment; (b) emphasize on different aspects of counselor characteristics and behaviors in cultural contexts; and (c) both play an integral, yet slightly varied, role during the counseling process. We discuss implications regarding embracing CH and CC in the counseling practice, counselor educator, and future research on multicultural counseling.

Recovery and trauma among urban African Americans with serious mental illness.

“…Individual-level variables need to unpack how psychological constructs related to trauma, like PTG, for example, impact the journey of an African American with SMI experiencing trauma (White et al, 2021). Competent service here eschews essentialism and promotes cultural humility (Zhu et al, 2023).…”

Cultural humility, counseling alliance, and counseling outcome among LGBTQ+ clients

“…Theoretically, the interpersonal aspects of cultural humility imply a good understanding and communication between counselors and clients. Accordingly, cultural humility leads to better relationships and alliance between counselors and their clients (Grad, 2022;Hook et al, 2013;Zhang et al, 2021;Zhu et al, 2022Zhu et al, , 2023b. Correspondingly, the lack of cultural humility is associated with poorer working alliances and more counseling ruptures (Davis et al, 2016).…”

“…Counseling practice with diverse clients requires the integration of cultural knowledge, skills, and culturally sensitive intervention to successfully and effectively serve clients from diverse cultural backgrounds (American Counseling Association [ACA], 2014). The key components emphasized in recent scholarship on working with cultural diversity are cultural competence and cultural humility (Hook et al, 2013;Zhu et al, 2023b). Cultural competence refers to the awareness, knowledge, and skills required for counselors to work competently with diverse clients (Zhu et al, 2023b).…”

“…Cultural humility helps counselors to continually update their LGBTQ+CC and focus on what is most relevant to diverse LGBTQ+ clients (Reeves et al, 2023;Zhu et al, 2023b). Because the terminologies, trends, needs, and perspectives of people in the LGBTQ+ community are fast evolving (Bitterman & Hess, 2021), and because legislation is changing rapidly, especially on issues relevant to transgender people (Wittlin et al, 2023), LGBTQ+CC may need constant update and revision to be currently relevant.…”

Resultado de la supervisión de la educación profesional de los consejeros escolares en formación

“…Two essential things in clinical supervision must be considered, especially in developing clinical competence. These two things are clinical competence outcome (decrease in client symptoms, improvement in supervisee competence) and multicultural competence outcome (improvement in supervisee multicultural competence) (Falender & Shafranske, 2023;Landon et al, 2023;Tsong & Goodyear, 2014;Zhu et al, 2023). Competent supervisors should be those who can address cultural diversity issues in both the supervision relationship and the trainee counselor's relationship with his client (Bernard, 2014).…”