Introduction
A counselor’s success in any goals that arise before them relies on a counselor’s ability to communicate and connect with the clients. It is essential to consider the client’s culture when establishing a therapist-client relationship. The client’s culture has an impact on the appropriate treatment, the ways of collaboration, and the result of psychotherapy. There are several methods of developing a counselor’s multicultural competencies; however, the process of obtaining a competency can pose a challenge.
Competency Development and Challenges
Developing multicultural competencies includes various aspects of communication and adaptation. One of the ways to establish multicultural competency is to obtain cultural awareness, which entails the ability to recognize the cultural backgrounds and cultural backgrounds of others. It includes studying assumptions and biases that one might have towards cultures, and the main challenge here is being able to accept and work through them. Another way to develop multicultural competency is through content adaptation. This term refers to people’s cultural values and customers, for example, the emphasis on family relations. It could be challenging to gauge the hierarchy of one’s cultural pillars if one does not have deep experience in engaging with them. The third method of cultural development is language adaptation, which means using the client’s preferred language elements in both spoken and written communication (Soto et al., 2018). This method is especially important for advocation for clients, where the counselor has permission to talk on the client’s behalf. The ability to understand the client’s linguistic peculiarities and use these peculiarities to connect with them and the outside world presents a serious challenge.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a counselor needs to understand their client’s cultural background and motivations. There are several methods to develop multicultural competencies that allow the counselor to connect with and advocate for the client, as well as make appropriate adjustments to treatment. Each of these methods poses its challenges, but having overcome them, the counselor gains a unique ability to navigate cultural causes and reasons behind various behavioral patterns.
Reference
Soto, A., Smith, T. B., Griner, D., Domenech Rodríguez, M., & Bernal, G. (2018). Cultural adaptations and therapist multicultural competence: Two meta‐analytic reviews. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 74(11), 1907–1923.