Multicultural Counseling: Will What You Don't Know Help You?

Abstract

CATHANNARCENEAUX Lloyd (1987) contends that when counseling individuals from other cultures or subcultures it is better to be uninformed about these cultural groups than it is to be knowledgeable about them even if this knowledge is relevant and accurate. Is a university professor actually attempting to convince us that, at least in the case of counseling persons from other cultures, ignorance is to be preferred to knowledge?Are counselors better off not learning about cultural differences because such knowledge will stereotype their counseling behavior with individuals of a given cultural group? Should we as counselors stop our research-or at least stop attempting to learn about the results of such research-on cultural differences? Should we limit our counseling skills to focusing on the individual, even if that individual is a member of a cultural group about which we have some useful information?In vocational counseling, would it be preferable not to learn about the personality characteristics, values, and typical behaviors of persons in each of Holland's six modal personality types? Surely as counselors we can respond to our physicist clients or our accountant clients as individuals, with that response enhanced by our knowledge and use of Holland's stereotypes. Similarly, multicultural counseling courses are based on the supposition that studying about cultures and particular groups yields much useful information that is often critical in the counseling process. Such knowledge, even though it deals with stereotypes, gives counselors concepts and conceptual frameworks around which to base other information that they receive both in and out of counseling-and these concepts are then modified to fit the particular individuals with whom counselors are involved in the counseling process.

Making Multiculturalism Relevant for Majority Culture Graduate Students*

“…2. Cultural knowledge (e.g., Gardner, 1980;Hood & Arceneaux, 1987;Ivey, 1987;Lappin, 1983;McGoldrick et al, 1982;Paradis 1981;Parker, 1987;Parker, Bingham, & Fukuyama, 1985;Parker, Valley, & Geary, 1986;Pedersen, 1988;Ponterotto & Casas, 1987;Sue, Akutsu, & Higashi, 1985;Webb, 1983). In perhaps classic academic style, training programs have assumed that acquiring information about other cultures will reduce the incidence of cross-cultural errors when working with members of another culture.…”

Exploring the Different Levels of Multicultural Counseling Training in Counselor Education

“…A number of proponents of multiculturalism have addressed this particular criticism arguing that counselor education program professionals should not encourage students to presume that communicating empathic understanding and positive regard for an individual is sufficient in achieving positive outcomes with all clients. Hood and Arceneaux (1987) have underscored this point stressing that counselor education program professionals do not serve the profession well by promoting the premise that communicating "empathy for an individual is sufficient for effective counseling or that with just empathy we can transcend all of the difficulties inherent in multicultural counseling situations" (pp. 174-175).…”

“…Many of the instructors, who use the single-course approach at the Cultural Integrity Stage, reported presenting the content in such a way as to intentionally foster an elimination of much of the false information about different cultural groups that is often developed in a counseling student's background or through the media. As Hood and Arceneaux (1987) stressed, the primary purpose of such courses should be aimed at "replacing the false stereotypes with accurate conceptions and information" (p. 174).…”

Multiculturalism and the School Counseling Curriculum

“…His concern is that students may use that information in a generalized way to form stereotypical judgments about the client's personal needs and issues rather than to respond to the client as an individual. Respondents to Lloyd (Ivey, 1987;Hood & Arceneaux 1987;Parker, 1987) supported the inclusion of such information in the curriculum as a primary, but not exclusive, way of sensitizing counselors in training to multicultural issues. There is certainly strong evidence that the best training experiences use a multifaceted approach (Parker, Valley, & Geary, 1986) that includes experiential contact with persons from differing cultures (Merta, Stringham, & Ponterotto, 1988;Mio, 1989;Sue, Akutsu, & Higashi, 1985) and provides opportunities for students to examine their skills and beliefs, such as the triad model developed by Pedersen (1979).…”