The Relationship Between Racial Identity Development and Multicultural Counseling Competency

Multidimensional Facets of Cultural Competence

Calls for incorporating cultural competence in psychology have been hindered for a number of reasons: belief in the universality of psychological laws and theories, the invisibility of monocultural policies and practices, differences over defining cultural competence, and the lack of a conceptual framework for organizing its multifaceted dimensions. A proposed multidimensional model of cultural competence (MDCC) incorporates three primary dimensions: (a) racial and culture-specific attributes of competence, (b) components of cultural competence, and (c) foci of cultural competence. Based on a 3 (Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills) × 4 (Individual, Professional, Organizational, and Societal) × 5 (African American, Asian American, Latino/Hispanic American, Native American, and European American) factorial combination, the MDCC allows for the systematic identification of cultural competence in a number of different areas. Its uses in education and training, practice, and research are discussed.

A Pedagogical Model for Increasing Race-Related Multicultural Counseling Competency 1ψ7

With the increasing need for multicultural competence, questions have emerged about the appropriate classroom strategies to cultivate growth in this area. These questions have been further complicated by a growing focus on self-awareness, which has increased the affective demands of and student resistance to the material. This article proposes a pedagogical model to enhance what the authors call race-related multicultural counseling competency, which focuses on race, racism, and racial identity development. The fundamental premise is that two types of safety, psychological safety and identity safety, must be present. The authors further argue that safety requires attention to both course content and teaching processes as well as an incremental learning approach that emphasizes race-related competence as a lifelong developmental process.

Individual and cultural-diversity competency: focus on the therapist

The Competencies Conference: Future Directions in Education and Credentialing in Professional Psychology was held in Arizona in November 2002. One of the workshops, Individual and Cultural Differences (ICD), focused on racism, homophobia, and ageism. The consensus was that self-awareness and knowledge about the three "isms" are critical components in the education and training of psychologists. This article, authored by four of the workshop attendees, is a review of the current research and theoretical literature. Implications that address both content and context in graduate programs and training sites are presented. This is one of a series of articles published in this issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychology. Several other articles that resulted from the Competencies Conference will appear in Professional Psychology: Research and Practice and The Counseling Psychologist.