PT 22003

BASIC COUNSELLING SKILLS

TITLE:
MULTICULTURAL

AZAHAR CHE LATIFF

Lecturer
Faculty of Psychology & Education, UMS
 How Can These Help You
And Your Clients?
Major Objectives
– Emphasizes that effective
interviews/counselling session build on
the professional ethics and multicultural
sensitivity. It is designed to provide
specifics for action in the
interview/session.
Specific Objectives
– Understanding of key ethical
principles in interviewing, counseling,
and psychotherapy.
– Ability to apply these ethical
principles in developing your own
informed consent form.
– Understanding a broad definition of
multicultural competence that
encourages awareness of multiple
cultural identities.
– Examination of your own multiple
cultural identities.
– Understanding the distinctions
between self and self-in-relation and
the importance the client in relation
to the environmental context.
ETHICS IN THE HELPING
PROCESS
Ethics: Observe and practice
ethically and follow professional
standards. Particularly important
issues for beginning
interviewers/counsellor are
competence, informed consent,
confidentiality, power, and social
justice.
Predicted Result: Client trust and
understanding of the
interviewing/session process will
increase. The client will feel
empowered in a more egalitarian
session. When you work toward
social justice, you contribute to
problem prevention in addition
to healing work in the
interview/session.
Ethics In Helping Process
• The codes promote professional
empowerment by assisting
professionals and professionals-in-
training to;
a) Keep good practice.
b) Protect their clients. Example Illegal &
Legal.
c) Safeguard their autonomy.
d) Enhance the profession.
Ethics in the Helping
Process

• Competence.
• Informed Consent.
• Confidentiality.
• Power (Role of Counsellor and Client)
• Social Justice and Advocacy (Legal).
 Competence
• The American Counseling Association’s (2005)
statement on competence brings diversity and
professional competence together.
• C.2.a. Boundaries of Competence. Counselors
practice only within the boundaries of their
competence, based on their education, training,
supervised experience, state and national
professional credentials, and appropriate
professional experience. Counselors will
demonstrate a commitment to gain knowledge,
personal awareness, sensitivity, and skills
pertinent to working with a diverse client
population.
 Informed Consent

• The counselor/interviewer inform

the clients their right, goal,
procedures, benefits and risks of the
counseling process and the client
agrees to what has been outlined.
Informed Consent Form
• Box 2-2 presents a
Sample Practice
Contract you can
use or adapt for
use for the
purposes of your
own practice
exercises.
• Use the sample as
an ethical starting
point and eventually
develop your own
approach to this
critical issue.
 Confidentiality
• Trust is build on your ability to keep
confidences.
• The American Counseling Association’s Ethical
Code (2005) states:
Section B: Introduction. Counselors recognize
that trust is the cornerstone of the counseling
relationship. Counselors aspire to earn the trust
of clients by creating an ongoing partnership,
establishing and upholding appropriate
boundaries, and maintaining confidentiality.
Counselors communicate the parameters of
confidentiality in a culturally competent
manner.
 Power

• The National Organization for Human Service

education (2000) comments on an important
ethical issue that often receives insufficient
attention:
Statement 6: Human service professionals are
aware that in their relationships with clients
power and status are unequal. Therefore, they
recognize that dual or multiple relationships may
increase the risk of harm to, or exploitation of
clients, an may impair professional judgement….
 Social Justice
• The National Association of Social Workers (1999)
suggests that action beyond the interview/counselling
session is needed and includes a major statement on
social justice.
• Ethical Principle :Social workers challenge social
injustice. Social workers pursue social change,
particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and
oppressed individuals and groups of people. Social
workers’ social change efforts are focused primarily on
issues of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and
other forms of social injustice. These activities seek to
promote sensitivity to and knowledge about oppression
and cultural and ethnic diversity. Social workers strive to
ensure access to needed information, services, and
resources; equality of opportunity; and meaningful
participation in decision making for all people.
 Diversity and Multicultural
Competence

• Diversity and multiculturalism have become central to

helping professions throughout the world.

• We interact professionally with many persons who come

from cultural backgrounds different than ours.

• Ensure minorities receive mental health care tailored to

their needs.
• Discuss obvious multicultural differences early in the
session.
• Use common sense and skilled judgment.
• The American Counseling Association
(2005) focuses the Preamble to their
Code of Ethics on diversity as a central
ethical issues.

• The Ethical Standards of Human Service

Professionals (National Organization of Human
service Professionals, 2000) include the
following three assertions:
– Statement 17 : Human service professionals
provide services without discrimination or
preference based on age, ethnicity, culture,
race, disability, gender, religion, sexual
orientation or socioeconomic status.
– Statement 18: Human service
professionals are knowledgeable about
the cultures and communities within
which they practice. They are aware of
multiculturalism in society and its impact
on the community as well as individuals
within the community. They respect
individuals and groups, their cultures and
beliefs.
– Statement 19: Human service
professionals are aware of their own
cultural backgrounds, beliefs, and values,
recognizing the potential for impact and
their relationships with others.
Major question is can you do it for the benefit
of your clients?

– Can you work for the benefit of clients who are

culturally different from you?

– Are you able to provide competent counseling

for men? Women? A person who is of a
different race or ethnic group from you?
– How effective are you with heterosexuals,
lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered,
Intersexed and questioning?
 Multicultural Practice
• The American Psychological Association
Multicultural Guidelines begin with
statement : “All individuals exist in social,
political, historical, and economic contexts
and psychologists are increasingly called
upon to understand the influences of these
contexts on individuals’ behavior
 Guideline for
Multicultural Practice
1. Awareness of your own assumptions,
values, and biases (Internal Counselor)
– Need to understand your own cultural
background and the differences that may exist
between you and people from different
cultures.
– The counselor/interviewer task is to improve
awareness, knowledge, and skills about who
he/she is if he/she is to work with clients
different background.
2. Understanding the worldview of the
culturally different client
(Internal/External Client)
– For interviewing/counselling purposes,
worldview is the way clients see themselves
and the world around them.
– Due to varying multicultural backgrounds,
each client views the world differently.
– The multicultural competences stress the
importance of our being aware of negative
emotional reactions we may have to groups
different from us.
3. Develop skills in understanding
various worldviews through
academic study, reading, involved
in the community – community
events, social and political
functions, celebrations and
festivals. (Based on Skills)
4. Developing appropriate intervention
strategies and techniques
– The multicultural movement in counseling
grew out of the dissatisfaction of minorities,
women, people with disabilities and groups
who felt that traditional counseling and
therapy not working effectively for them.
– Cultural intentionally – the ability to engage
in many and varied verbal and nonverbal
helping responses is a basic skill for
multicultural work (Based on Theory)
 Multicultural Practice

Multicultural Competence: Base Predicted Result: Anticipate that

interviewer/counsellor both you and your clients will
behavior on an ethical appreciate, gain respect, and
approach with an awareness learn from increasing
of the many issues of knowledge in ethics and
diversity. Include the multiple multicultural competence.
dimensions described in this You, the interviewer, will
chapter. have a solid foundation for a
lifetime of personal and
professional growth.
 Multicultural Practice
• Dimension 1: Be aware of your own assumptions,
values, and biases (Counselor Factor).

• Dimension 2: Understand the worldview of the

culturally different client (Client Factor).

• Dimension 3: Develop appropriate strategies and

techniques (Skill Factor).
RESPECTFUL Model
Multicultural Review Issues, D’Andrea & Daniels, 2001

R Religion/spirituality
E Economic/class background
S Sexual identity
P Personal style
E Ethnic/racial identity
C Chronological/lifespan challenges
T Trauma
F Family background
U Unique physical characteristics
L Location of residence/language
Developing Appropriate Intervention
Strategies and Techniques
• Expand skills in traditional strategies and newer
methods (IT).

• Use traditional theory in a more culturally

respectful manner (T vs C)

• Build awareness of cultural bias in testing

instruments and assessment processes.

• Adapt present methods to be more culturally

sensitive (post modern approach)

• Engage in varied helping responses to support

multicultural clients (Practice more in
multicultural).
 The Five Stages of The
Well-Formed Interview
1)Initiating The session – Rapport And Structuring
- To build a working alliance with the client & to
enable the client to feel comfortable with the
interviewer.
- Structuring may be needed to explain the
purpose of the interview.
- informed consent
– Skills ;
– Attending behavior – establish contact with the client.
– Observation skills – determine appropriate method to
build rapport
2) Gathering Data – Drawing Out Stories,
Concerns, Problems Or Issues.
- To find out why the client has come to
the interview and listen to the story.
- Skillful problem definition will help avoid
aimless topic jumping and give the
interview purpose and direction.
- It also helps to identify clearly positive
strengths of the client.
– Commonly used skills;
– Attending behavior skills especially listening .
– Influencing skill - Structuring
3) Mutual Goal Setting
– To find out the ideal world of the client.
– How would the client like to be? How would
things be if the problem were solved?
– This stage is important in that it enables the
interviewer to know what the client wants.
– The desired direction of the client and
counselor should be reasonably harmonious.
– Commonly used skills;
– Attending skills
– Listening
– Influencing skills
4) Working- Exploring Alternatives,
Confronting Clients Incongruities And
Conflict, Restoring
– To work toward resolution of the client’s issue.
– This may involve the creative problem-solving
model of generating alternatives and deciding
among those alternatives.
– It also may involve lengthy exploration of
personal dynamics.
– This stage of the interview may be the longest.
– Commonly used skills
• May begin with summary of major
discrepancies.
• Depending on the issue and theory of the
interviewer, more influencing skills
5) Terminating- Generalizing And
Acting On New Stories (Will You Do
It?)
– To facilitate changes in thoughts,
feelings and behaviors in the client’s
daily life.
– Many clients go through an interview and
then do nothing to change their
behavior, remaining the same as when
they came in.
– Commonly used skills;
– Influencing skills such as directives and
information/explanation are particularly
important
– Attending skills used to check out
client’s understanding of importance of
generalizing interview learning to daily
life.
 Conclusion
• Major Objective
• Specific objective
• Ethics in helping profession
• Diversity and multicultural
• Multicultural practice
– Guideline for multicultural practices
• The Five stage of the well formed
interview
• Thank You