Comments on: New Study Uses Clinical Scenarios to Measure Therapists’ Multicultural Skills

By: Parsons

Parsons — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 11:16:01 +0000

So some of these therapists are not really in tune at all with multicultural affairs unless the problem is explicitly stated by the client?
I’m sorry but don’t you think that they should be able to read between the lines a little better than that?
From the looks of the study here, if the patient did not clearly say that he felt discrmintaed against, then the therapists had a harder time drawing out the fact that the patient could be feeling cultural pressures that may not have been previously considered.

By: rochelle

rochelle — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 20:51:08 +0000

Yolanda – I still think of some of the life lessons I learned from taking Internalized Oppression (IO). If you’re seriously interested in jolting your cultural and ethnic perceptions pick up Ronald Takaki’s ‘A Different Mirror’. You’ll way away with a new lens :)

By: KIM

KIM — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 20:35:36 +0000

Well I immigrated to the States almost three decades ago and although my English is good,i would feel a lot more comfortable talking to a therapist in my mother tongue.its just that human element you know that makes you lean towards being comfortable with somebody who can connect to you in any which way possible.The more the connect the greater the level of comfort.

By: yolanda

yolanda — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 11:27:42 +0000

Hi Rochelle- that class that you took sounds like something that all of us could benefit from, grad school or not! I know that I don’t think of myself as a prejudiced person, but I know that wehn I look deep enough it is there. Same thing with anyone in any profession. That sounds like a class that would help you to not only identify those hidden prejudices that you hold but also give you valuable ways to confront those when they are presented to you in situations where you cannot believe that way. I like to be challenged and provoked a little, because that is where I think many of us do our best work. Sometimes it is hard to admit that we all have these prejudices and stereotypes, and whether or not you think you have those supressed or act on them, if you are working with a patient you never know if they are sensing just how you really feel inside and how harmful that could be to him or her.

By: Rochelle

Rochelle — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 16:07:29 +0000

@Rickie – I totally get that. Sometimes ‘training’ -exposure, discussion, self-analysis, examination – is what it takes at least in the beginning.
While in graduate school, I remember being on the wailist for a class called ‘Internalized Oppression’. I also remember the entire campus buzzing at it because you got to really ‘do the work’ and not simply be ‘trained’ in certain skill set. It was by far the most healing experience I’ve ever had with a group of people about various types of opression – ethnic, racial, gender, ableism, etc… So, I consider that (among other things) my ‘real work’ but man, was it tough!

By: Arnold.F

Arnold.F — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 11:38:52 +0000

Well if a clinician has experience dealing with people of a different ethnicity than his/her own then i think they can build up these skills gradually. And if they do not have enough practice behind them then maybe they can watch videos and learn.Would this be a good idea?

By: Rickie

Rickie — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 11:29:47 +0000

Don’t you feel that in some ways therapists, just like the rest of us, will either be sensitive to these issues or not? That “training” them to be more sensitive is not necessarily the answer. You can hardly weed out those lifetimes of prejudices simply through multicultural education sessions. This takes real work on their part to change and become more sensitive to the discriminations and adversity that others may face that they need to address and be more attentive to.

By: capers

capers — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 00:01:36 +0000

Giving therapists the chance to work with scenarios that represent real life situations are a wonderful training tool for enhancing not only their therapeutic skills, but also the chance to heighten their understanding of multicultural isssues as well. Having the opportunity to receive feedback form their peers and other professionals can be a fantastic opportunity for them to learn and to grow. Their practices will thrive as a result, but more importnatly the lives of their patients will then thrive too.

By: Rochelle

Rochelle — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 19:29:40 +0000

I like that measuring clinicians multicultural competency and response to those issues in treatment made it to ‘Therapy News’. I work with another clinician of a different ethnicity and culture and we’re constantly discussing how even the most seemingly minute comment or implication affects treatment and what it says about ourselves and how we view the client. While our agency encourages this sort of discussion in a group setting, our comments rarely escape our office. In part, because we feel ‘safe’ and are in a space of non-judgement.
Another area that resonated with me was the notion that clinicans of color tend to be more sensitive to cultural causes than white clinicians – since I notice that same sensitivity in my client ineractions!

By: Randall

Randall — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 18:19:31 +0000

I too have found that people of color in general are far more sympathetic to the causes that face others like us, like discrimination or profiling.

That’s not to say that there are no Caucasions who are not also sympathetic to the cause; it is simply that in my own experience that has been particularly hard to find.

I want someone with whom I can share my experiences and who will understand, not just because I tell them about them but because they may have been through the same thing before. Sometimes that kind of real world experience far outweighs just the fact that someone is sympathetic to you.