Marginalized Counselor Educators' Experiences Negotiating Identity: A Narrative Inquiry

Abstract

Counseling professionals who identify as people of color, women, and gender or sexual minorities commonly suppress or negotiate their personal identities due to experiencing adversity. We describe findings from a narrative inquiry of counselor educators' experiences negotiating marginalized identities. Implications for intersectional praxis—including reflexivity, mentorship, and power deconstruction—are discussed.

Educating professional counselors about the social determinants of mental health

“…Scholars have written extensively about the importance of multicultural competence in supervision (Cartwright et al., 2018; Hinojosa & Carney, 2016; Hook et al., 2016; Peters et al., 2022; Thacker et al., 2021; Wilcox et al., 2022). In general, the research on multicultural supervision supports the purposeful exploration of diversity issues and the focus on developing counselor awareness, knowledge, and skills in working with diverse clients.…”

An assessment‐based approach to understanding intersectional privilege

“…Although the term has evolved across disciplines (Carbado et al., 2013), intersectionality is particularly important in counseling and counselor education because processes and outcomes are primarily achieved in the context of working relationships where the valuing of lived experience is key (Singh et al., 2020). A primary focus of intersectionality in counseling is recognizing the influence of relationship dynamics when differing intersectional positions of privilege and marginalization exist (Pester et al., 2020; Thacker et al., 2021). Because the dynamics of intersectional privilege can permeate every part of a person's life, several professional standards in counseling reflect opportunities to integrate intersectionality theory into counselor preparation and training, and to do so with intention (American Counseling Association [ACA], 2014, Standards F.6.b., F.7.c., and F.11.c.…”

“…Counselor educators, supervisors, and FAs who complete the IPSI will benefit from it and increase their own self‐awareness in the critical areas assessed by the tool. Increased awareness among counselor educators can facilitate the same in their CITs (Thacker et al., 2021). Counselor educators, supervisors, and FAs who neglect this important step may not have a baseline measure for understanding their own intersecting positions of privilege, power, and marginalization relevant to the MSJCC developmental domain of counselor self‐awareness and can struggle to help CITs recognize these areas in their profiles.…”

“…Finally, step three is focused on planning stages and tasks of CIT development throughout the counselor education program. Data from the IPSI profile can be useful in helping counselor educators understand how a student perceives their areas of intersectional privilege at the point of assessment and how experiences in courses might impact that understanding over time (Thacker et al., 2021). Given the IPSI's exploration of multiple identities, the assessment provides useful data to help CITs target areas of underdevelopment with regard to the MSJCC and challenge their efforts in combating inequities.…”