Alusine M. Kanu, D.A.
On multicultural sensitivities in "Issues and Ethics in the Helping Professions," Corey and Corey (2010) present discussions of relevant issues of counseling the multicultural, including religious views and sexual orientation. A methodological approach for balancing proper sensitivity to diverse populations and the role of representing God and a theological perspective will be presented and analyzed. An attempt will also be made to construct a theory of pastoral care and counseling and a pastoral theology based on effects of ethical reasoning and conclusions. A multicultural sensitive design for a multicultural counseling program has objectives of helping counselees to (1) develop a multicultural perspective, (2) understand barriers to effective multicultural counseling, (3) become familiar with current issues and concepts in multicultural counseling, (4) develop skills and strategies for counseling multicultural and specific populations, and (5) apply theoretical concepts to multicultural counseling. Multicultural counseling methodology of sensitivity allows individuals to progress through counseling programs at their own rate by offering sessions that provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date knowledge and skills in counseling.
With practical experiences in counseling settings, awareness of ethical, legal, and spiritual factors in counseling develops when counselees' diversity is respected, shared, and demonstrates essential skills, including problem solving, wellness, and social interaction through challenging individually- and group-oriented programs. The counselor's role in understanding multicultural sensitivities is of great importance. The counselor has influence over the counselee with his or her values. Valuable multicultural materials are ineffective when used by counselors who may lack a knowledge base in multicultural education. It is essential that counselors have positive attitudes towards a variety of racial, ethnic, and cultural groups. For this reason, it is imperative to implement continuous counseling development. Multicultural insensitivities lead to stereotypes. Stereotypes typically refer to membership in social categories such as sex, race, age, or profession.
Stereotypes are generalizations, or assumptions that people make about the characteristics of all members of a group, based on an image (often wrong) about what people in that group are like. The basic tactic, according to Breslin (2003), is to focus on the particular individual, rather than on their ethnic or national background. Walter Lippman defined stereotypes as "pictures in our heads" and argued that stereotypes are not merely descriptions of others, but include an affective component that is driven by one's self-respect and value orientations. Others define stereotypes as exaggerated images of the characteristics of a particular group held by prejudiced people who hold ill feelings toward that group. Pro-ductive interactions between different groups can counteract stereotypes. Stereotyping is a natural and universal information-processing strategy. Stereotyping should be seen as a normal and essentially benign process that is a useful information-processing tool in diverse societies. The difficulty arises when stereotypes carry a negative connotation and are used to over generalize negative traits to an entire group of people when in reality, few members of the group actually posses such traits. In order for individuals to become more interculturally conscious, they must learn to question stereotypes (the building blocks of prejudice), and to break through the "getting to know you" phenomenon.
Culturally competent pastoral counselors assess each individual on a person-to-person basis, rather than categorizing such people into stereotypes. Stereo-typing keeps one from making fair and honest judgments about people. Stereotyping is a generalization about some group of people that oversimplifies their culture. Many ste-reotypes are completely incorrect, and others greatly distort reality. A stereotype is often self-fulfilling. If we accept a stereotype as an accurate description, we tend to see evi-dence that supports it and to overlook the frequent exceptions to it. We learn stereotypes as part of our culture. Forming codes and thinking in terms of categories is a necessary aspect of human communication. Culturally sensitive individuals guard against the dangers of thinking in stereotypes; they remain flexible in changing these classifications. Culturally competent people use stereotypes as tools with limited functions. Cultural relativism means questioning existing stereotypes. Communication variables that might help to reduce particularly negative stereotypes are to ensure communication accuracy, active listening, dialogic listening, mediated communication, dialogue and respectful communication.
Theoretical integrations of multicultural counseling attempts to bring various theories together through the development of a theoretical framework that can explain the environmental, motivational, cognitive, and affective domains of an individual. With integrationist, as well as with other psychologists truth is changeable. New truth replaces old truth as new truth is theorized, conceived, or discovered. Psychotherapy integration includes harmonious efforts to connect affective, cognitive, and behavioral and systems approaches under a single theory, and the application of this theory to the treatment of individuals, couples, and families. The notion integrates diverse models of human functioning (Goldfried, 1995). Since humans are integrated beings, an integrative approach to counseling focuses on thinking, feeling, and acting. Such a combination is necessary to help clients think about their beliefs and assumptions, to experience on a feeling level their conflicts and struggles, and to translate insights into action programs. Integrative case conceptualization builds upon a multiple challenges comprehensive framework. Integrative theoretical framework is designed to facilitate an understanding of the risks and opportunities associated with the developmental pathways of multiple challenges of families. Because no one theory has a patent on the truth, and because no single set of counseling techniques is always effective in working with diverse client populations, some writers think that it is sensible to cross boundaries by developing integrative approaches as the basis of for future counseling practice (Lazarus, 1996).
Practitioners who are open to integrative perspectives find that several theories play a crucial role in counseling approaches. Each theory has its own contributions and its own domain of expertise. By accepting that each theory has strengths and weaknesses and is by definition different from the others, practitioners have some basis to begin developing a theory that fits for them. It is important to emphasize that unless counselors have an accurate, in-depth knowledge of theories, they cannot formulate a true synthesis (Norcross and Newman, 1992). Selection of interventions should be guided by their assessment of the client. Limitations of the integrationist model is that if counselors merely pick and choose according to whims it is likely that what they select will be a reflection of their biases. For counseling to be effective it is necessary to utilize techniques and procedures in a manner that is consistent with the client's values, life experiences, and cultural background. Although it is unwise to stereotype clients because of their cultural heritage, it is useful to assess how the cultural context has a bearing on their problems. Some inte-grationist techniques may be constrained because of the client's socialization.
A number of supervision techniques have been proposed to ensure that the cultural dimension is addressed. Bernard and Goodyear (1992) planned discussion of culture and the culture of counseling, exploration of supervisee and supervisor cultural backgrounds, modeling by the supervisor, inclusion of cultural considerations on all intake, case management, and other written supervision reports, and experiential exer-cises are methods that can be used in individual and group supervision. Sue (1992) recommends that all supervisors work with supervisees from racial ethnic groups other than their own and receive supervision for multicultural supervision. Conceptualizing clients from a multicultural perspective means that counselors are (a) aware of and can integrate the impact of various cultural factors on clients presenting issues and (b) able to articulate an appropriate treatment plan for working with clients based on knowledge (Constantine and Ladny, 2001). In particular, counselors' theoretical orientation may impact the ways in which they make sense of issues affecting culturally diverse indi-viduals. Counseling theoretical orientations that have been presented include psycho-dynamic, humanistic, and cognitive-behavioral theories. Eclectic counseling approaches have been increasingly popular because they utilize a primary theoretical orientation, but may borrow techniques from other theoretical orientations based on their proven efficacy (Lazarus and Beutler, 1993).
To balance multicultural sensitivities is to capitalize on what we already do. When possible, it is useful to use the therapeutic alliance by designing learning tech-niques that capture many counselees' experiences. It is important in counseling and learning to pay attention to different learning styles and needs of multicultural counselees in helping all to succeed. Another strategy is to create diverse groups when counselees work on team projects, thus improving their cultural sensitivity and tolerance. What is genuinely and intentionally multicultural would be providing members a diverse group environment where there is active participation in the diverse environment and where social and cultural awareness is an implicit and legitimate academic norm. As pastoral counselors committed to multiculturalism, we should emphasize recognition and respect differences and acknowledge the need to find common ground with those unlike our-selves. We can help our counselees think critically about the world they live in, includ-ing how systems of power can be used for promoting progress in a more egalitarian and humane society.The ethical code of the American Psychological Association (2003) states that "Psychologists are aware of cultural, individual, and role differences, including those to age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and national origin" (p. 377).
An ethical imperative is necessary to attain cultural competence. Increasing cultural competence at a fundamental, ethical level is the right thing to do. Effective multicultural education entails an ethical commitment to work toward the repair of the world. As counselors, we have an ethical obligation to help equip students not only to live and work in an increas-ingly diverse and multicultural world, but also to join us to make the world more just and peaceful. Ethical guidelines continue to evolve to reflect how we apply moral principles to our lives, and our lives must include those who are presently marginalized in society. To lead we must address the diversity of people in all aspects of society with genuine respect and caring. The diversity-specific guidelines for researchers emphasize showing respect for others through courtesy, honesty, understanding, and collaboration. The counseling profession has been a leader in promoting multicultural sensitivity and prac-tice, including all persons and peoples as respected members of the human family. If we have respect individually and collectively, we have no choice but to include all sorts of diversity such as ethnicity, gender, abilities, age, and sexual orientation. Clearly, ethical practice in multicultural counseling must be contextual, relational, and aspirational.
References
 American Psychological Association (2003). Guidelines on multicultural education, training, research, practice, or organizational change for psychologists. American Psychologist, 58(5), 377-402.
Bernard, J.M. and Goodyear, R.K. (1992). Fundamentals of clinical supervision. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Breslin (2003). In P.M. Lester and C.T. Ross (Eds.) Images that injure: Pictorial stereotypes in the media (2nd ed.). Goleta CA: ABC CLIO Inc.
Constantine, M.G. and Ladny, N. (2001). New visions for assessing multicultural counseling competence. Handbook of Multicultural Counseling (2nd ed.). Thousand oaks CA: Sage, 482-498.
Corey, A. and Corey, P. (2010). Issues and ethics in the helping professions. Belmont CA: Cengage Learning, 112-153.
Goldfried, M.R. (1995). From cognitive behavior therapy to psychotherapy integration. New York: Springer.
Lazarus, A.A. (1996). The utility and futility of combining treatments in psychotherapy. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 3(1), 59-68.
Lazarus, A.B. and Beutler, L.E. (1993). On technical eclecticism. Journal of Counseling and Development, 71(4), 381-385.
Norcross, J.C. and Newman, C.F. (1992). Psychotherapy integration: Selling the context. In J.C. Norcross and M.R. Goldfried, Handbook of psychotherapy integration. New York: Basic Books, 3-45.
Sue, D.W., Arredondo, P. and McDavis, R.J. (1992). Multicultural counseling competencies and standards: A call to the profession. Journal of Counseling and Development, 70, 477-486.
On multicultural sensitivities in "Issues and Ethics in the Helping Professions," Corey and Corey (2010) present discussions of relevant issues of counseling the multicultural, including religious views and sexual orientation. A methodological approach for balancing proper sensitivity to diverse populations and the role of representing God and a theological perspective will be presented and analyzed. An attempt will also be made to construct a theory of pastoral care and counseling and a pastoral theology based on effects of ethical reasoning and conclusions. A multicultural sensitive design for a multicultural counseling program has objectives of helping counselees to (1) develop a multicultural perspective, (2) understand barriers to effective multicultural counseling, (3) become familiar with current issues and concepts in multicultural counseling, (4) develop skills and strategies for counseling multicultural and specific populations, and (5) apply theoretical concepts to multicultural counseling. Multicultural counseling methodology of sensitivity allows individuals to progress through counseling programs at their own rate by offering sessions that provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date knowledge and skills in counseling.
With practical experiences in counseling settings, awareness of ethical, legal, and spiritual factors in counseling develops when counselees' diversity is respected, shared, and demonstrates essential skills, including problem solving, wellness, and social interaction through challenging individually- and group-oriented programs. The counselor's role in understanding multicultural sensitivities is of great importance. The counselor has influence over the counselee with his or her values. Valuable multicultural materials are ineffective when used by counselors who may lack a knowledge base in multicultural education. It is essential that counselors have positive attitudes towards a variety of racial, ethnic, and cultural groups. For this reason, it is imperative to implement continuous counseling development. Multicultural insensitivities lead to stereotypes. Stereotypes typically refer to membership in social categories such as sex, race, age, or profession.
Stereotypes are generalizations, or assumptions that people make about the characteristics of all members of a group, based on an image (often wrong) about what people in that group are like. The basic tactic, according to Breslin (2003), is to focus on the particular individual, rather than on their ethnic or national background. Walter Lippman defined stereotypes as "pictures in our heads" and argued that stereotypes are not merely descriptions of others, but include an affective component that is driven by one's self-respect and value orientations. Others define stereotypes as exaggerated images of the characteristics of a particular group held by prejudiced people who hold ill feelings toward that group. Pro-ductive interactions between different groups can counteract stereotypes. Stereotyping is a natural and universal information-processing strategy. Stereotyping should be seen as a normal and essentially benign process that is a useful information-processing tool in diverse societies. The difficulty arises when stereotypes carry a negative connotation and are used to over generalize negative traits to an entire group of people when in reality, few members of the group actually posses such traits. In order for individuals to become more interculturally conscious, they must learn to question stereotypes (the building blocks of prejudice), and to break through the "getting to know you" phenomenon.
Culturally competent pastoral counselors assess each individual on a person-to-person basis, rather than categorizing such people into stereotypes. Stereo-typing keeps one from making fair and honest judgments about people. Stereotyping is a generalization about some group of people that oversimplifies their culture. Many ste-reotypes are completely incorrect, and others greatly distort reality. A stereotype is often self-fulfilling. If we accept a stereotype as an accurate description, we tend to see evi-dence that supports it and to overlook the frequent exceptions to it. We learn stereotypes as part of our culture. Forming codes and thinking in terms of categories is a necessary aspect of human communication. Culturally sensitive individuals guard against the dangers of thinking in stereotypes; they remain flexible in changing these classifications. Culturally competent people use stereotypes as tools with limited functions. Cultural relativism means questioning existing stereotypes. Communication variables that might help to reduce particularly negative stereotypes are to ensure communication accuracy, active listening, dialogic listening, mediated communication, dialogue and respectful communication.
Theoretical integrations of multicultural counseling attempts to bring various theories together through the development of a theoretical framework that can explain the environmental, motivational, cognitive, and affective domains of an individual. With integrationist, as well as with other psychologists truth is changeable. New truth replaces old truth as new truth is theorized, conceived, or discovered. Psychotherapy integration includes harmonious efforts to connect affective, cognitive, and behavioral and systems approaches under a single theory, and the application of this theory to the treatment of individuals, couples, and families. The notion integrates diverse models of human functioning (Goldfried, 1995). Since humans are integrated beings, an integrative approach to counseling focuses on thinking, feeling, and acting. Such a combination is necessary to help clients think about their beliefs and assumptions, to experience on a feeling level their conflicts and struggles, and to translate insights into action programs. Integrative case conceptualization builds upon a multiple challenges comprehensive framework. Integrative theoretical framework is designed to facilitate an understanding of the risks and opportunities associated with the developmental pathways of multiple challenges of families. Because no one theory has a patent on the truth, and because no single set of counseling techniques is always effective in working with diverse client populations, some writers think that it is sensible to cross boundaries by developing integrative approaches as the basis of for future counseling practice (Lazarus, 1996).
Practitioners who are open to integrative perspectives find that several theories play a crucial role in counseling approaches. Each theory has its own contributions and its own domain of expertise. By accepting that each theory has strengths and weaknesses and is by definition different from the others, practitioners have some basis to begin developing a theory that fits for them. It is important to emphasize that unless counselors have an accurate, in-depth knowledge of theories, they cannot formulate a true synthesis (Norcross and Newman, 1992). Selection of interventions should be guided by their assessment of the client. Limitations of the integrationist model is that if counselors merely pick and choose according to whims it is likely that what they select will be a reflection of their biases. For counseling to be effective it is necessary to utilize techniques and procedures in a manner that is consistent with the client's values, life experiences, and cultural background. Although it is unwise to stereotype clients because of their cultural heritage, it is useful to assess how the cultural context has a bearing on their problems. Some inte-grationist techniques may be constrained because of the client's socialization.
A number of supervision techniques have been proposed to ensure that the cultural dimension is addressed. Bernard and Goodyear (1992) planned discussion of culture and the culture of counseling, exploration of supervisee and supervisor cultural backgrounds, modeling by the supervisor, inclusion of cultural considerations on all intake, case management, and other written supervision reports, and experiential exer-cises are methods that can be used in individual and group supervision. Sue (1992) recommends that all supervisors work with supervisees from racial ethnic groups other than their own and receive supervision for multicultural supervision. Conceptualizing clients from a multicultural perspective means that counselors are (a) aware of and can integrate the impact of various cultural factors on clients presenting issues and (b) able to articulate an appropriate treatment plan for working with clients based on knowledge (Constantine and Ladny, 2001). In particular, counselors' theoretical orientation may impact the ways in which they make sense of issues affecting culturally diverse indi-viduals. Counseling theoretical orientations that have been presented include psycho-dynamic, humanistic, and cognitive-behavioral theories. Eclectic counseling approaches have been increasingly popular because they utilize a primary theoretical orientation, but may borrow techniques from other theoretical orientations based on their proven efficacy (Lazarus and Beutler, 1993).
To balance multicultural sensitivities is to capitalize on what we already do. When possible, it is useful to use the therapeutic alliance by designing learning tech-niques that capture many counselees' experiences. It is important in counseling and learning to pay attention to different learning styles and needs of multicultural counselees in helping all to succeed. Another strategy is to create diverse groups when counselees work on team projects, thus improving their cultural sensitivity and tolerance. What is genuinely and intentionally multicultural would be providing members a diverse group environment where there is active participation in the diverse environment and where social and cultural awareness is an implicit and legitimate academic norm. As pastoral counselors committed to multiculturalism, we should emphasize recognition and respect differences and acknowledge the need to find common ground with those unlike our-selves. We can help our counselees think critically about the world they live in, includ-ing how systems of power can be used for promoting progress in a more egalitarian and humane society.The ethical code of the American Psychological Association (2003) states that "Psychologists are aware of cultural, individual, and role differences, including those to age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and national origin" (p. 377).
An ethical imperative is necessary to attain cultural competence. Increasing cultural competence at a fundamental, ethical level is the right thing to do. Effective multicultural education entails an ethical commitment to work toward the repair of the world. As counselors, we have an ethical obligation to help equip students not only to live and work in an increas-ingly diverse and multicultural world, but also to join us to make the world more just and peaceful. Ethical guidelines continue to evolve to reflect how we apply moral principles to our lives, and our lives must include those who are presently marginalized in society. To lead we must address the diversity of people in all aspects of society with genuine respect and caring. The diversity-specific guidelines for researchers emphasize showing respect for others through courtesy, honesty, understanding, and collaboration. The counseling profession has been a leader in promoting multicultural sensitivity and prac-tice, including all persons and peoples as respected members of the human family. If we have respect individually and collectively, we have no choice but to include all sorts of diversity such as ethnicity, gender, abilities, age, and sexual orientation. Clearly, ethical practice in multicultural counseling must be contextual, relational, and aspirational.
References
 American Psychological Association (2003). Guidelines on multicultural education, training, research, practice, or organizational change for psychologists. American Psychologist, 58(5), 377-402.
Bernard, J.M. and Goodyear, R.K. (1992). Fundamentals of clinical supervision. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Breslin (2003). In P.M. Lester and C.T. Ross (Eds.) Images that injure: Pictorial stereotypes in the media (2nd ed.). Goleta CA: ABC CLIO Inc.
Constantine, M.G. and Ladny, N. (2001). New visions for assessing multicultural counseling competence. Handbook of Multicultural Counseling (2nd ed.). Thousand oaks CA: Sage, 482-498.
Corey, A. and Corey, P. (2010). Issues and ethics in the helping professions. Belmont CA: Cengage Learning, 112-153.
Goldfried, M.R. (1995). From cognitive behavior therapy to psychotherapy integration. New York: Springer.
Lazarus, A.A. (1996). The utility and futility of combining treatments in psychotherapy. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 3(1), 59-68.
Lazarus, A.B. and Beutler, L.E. (1993). On technical eclecticism. Journal of Counseling and Development, 71(4), 381-385.
Norcross, J.C. and Newman, C.F. (1992). Psychotherapy integration: Selling the context. In J.C. Norcross and M.R. Goldfried, Handbook of psychotherapy integration. New York: Basic Books, 3-45.
Sue, D.W., Arredondo, P. and McDavis, R.J. (1992). Multicultural counseling competencies and standards: A call to the profession. Journal of Counseling and Development, 70, 477-486.