Counseling Psychology and the Amelioration of Oppression: Translating Our Knowledge Into Action

In the new millennium, counseling psychologists have answered the call to address oppression related to intersectional identities. We have played a major role in the development of practice guidelines and policies, as well as in the application of ethical principles in cultural contexts. The Counseling Psychologist has served to disseminate information addressing needs and interventions for diverse communities. In this article, we review the history and impact of our efforts to ameliorate oppression. The pressing challenges of economic and educational disparities are highlighted along with how counseling psychologists are uniquely situated to meet the needs of the underserved. Our research, training, and practice are anchored in methodological pluralism, global helping paradigms, participatory engagement, and the promotion of liberation and radical healing. We offer recommendations to deconstruct current models and reconstruct a decolonized approach, embrace interdisciplinary collaboration to fight cultural encapsulation, strengthen prevention and advocacy, train a culturally diverse workforce, and prioritize intersectional research.

Rogers’s Person-Centered Approach: Consideration for Use in Multicultural Counseling

To provide competent counseling services to an increasingly diverse clientele, attention must be given to the applicability of the dominant theoretical orientations. Rogers’s person-centered approach is widely used, but the appropriateness of its diverse applications should not be assumed. This article considers the applicability of Rogers’s person-centered approach in multicultural counseling contexts.

An Investigation of Rehabilitation Counselor Characteristics, White Racial Attitudes, and Self-Reported Multicultural Counseling Competencies

This study assessed the relationship between White racial attitudes and self-reported multicultural counseling competencies. Counselor characteristics were also examined in relation to multicultural competence. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that racial attitudes explained variance in self-reported multicultural competencies beyond those explained by demographic and educational variables. These results indicate that racial attitude development should be considered an integral aspect of rehabilitation counselor education programs and continuing education opportunities for practicing rehabilitation counselors.

Portfolio Assessment of Multicultural Counseling Competency

Portfolio assessment is an alternate approach to the measurement of multicultural counseling competency. Most approaches to the assessment of multicultural counseling competency have focused on the development of point-in-time instruments that determine the degree to which an individual has acquired the awareness, knowledge, and skills associated with being a multiculturally competent counselor. A portfolio assessment encourages the learner to present concrete evidence that demonstrates his or her current level of multicultural counseling competency. This approach can be effective at both identifying the level of multicultural counseling competency for purposes of evaluation and for stimulating the development of further competence. The strengths and weaknesses of this approach to assessment of multicultural counseling competency are also discussed.

Houston, 2001

This article presents an overview of the Houston 2001 National Counseling Psychology Conference. The authors discuss the context for the 4th National Counseling Psychology Conference, documentthe process of decision makingaboutthe conference, andexamine the content of the conference. The authors also examine a unique feature of the conference, the social action groups, discussing their philosophical underpinnings as well as how they were organized, what took place, and recommendations drawn from the groups. The authors evaluatethe outcomes of the Houston Conference andalso assess the conference within the context of the legacy of the three other counseling psychology conferences held at Northwestern University in 1951, in the Greyston Conference Center at Teachers College in 1964, and in Atlanta in 1987. Finally, the authors make recommendations for the field to move the conference’s initiatives forward and plan for future conferences.

Integrating Social and Counseling Psychological Perspectives on the Self

Few areas present a more ideal opportunity for dialogue between counseling and social psychologists than the self Both disciplines have contributed significantly to the development of self theories and the design of methodologies suitable for understanding processes and practices relevant to the self However, counseling and social psychologists are finding it increasingly necessary to value and actively initiate interdisciplinary discussion and collaboration in order to prevent cognitive blind spots in understandings of the self In this article, the authors examine impediments to successful bridging of the disciplines and highlight areas ripe for interface within the arenas of professional training and development, theory, practice, methodology, metatheory, and epistemology. More specifically, the authors identify cultural, interpersonal, developmental, motivational, evaluative, regulatory, structural, and vocational aspects of the self that would benefit from collaborative inquiry. Throughout this article, the authors attempt to balance illustrations of the actual and potential applications of knowledge relevant to the self with calls to counseling and social psychologists to work together to ensure the relevance of their self analyses to diverse cultures.

Multicultural Counseling Training

This article provides a selective review of the multicultural counseling training (MCT) literature. A brief historical account of multicultural counseling (MCC) is followed by three other sections detailing current models of MCT, conceptualization of training objectives, and empirical research. Within these sections, critical issues for the present and future development of MCT are highlighted and discussed.

Revisioning Sexual Minority Identity Formation

This article describes a new, inclusive model of lesbian identity formation. A rationale for the model is presented, which includes a review of relevant literature in lesbian/gay identity, racial/ethnic identity, and gender issues related to identity development. Three case studies are presented to elucidate the applications of the model to counseling, and the article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the model for research.

Principles and Virtues

Principle ethics can be described as a set of prima facie obligations one considers when confronted with an ethical dilemma. Virtue ethics focuses on character traits and nonobligatory ideals that facilitate the development of ethical individuals. Within the context of the assumption that the major responsibilities or primary goals of professionals are to be competent and to serve the common good, we suggest that integrating these complementary ethical perspectives provides a coherent structure for enhancing the ethical competence of psychologists and counselors and the level of public trust in the character and actions of these professions and their members. Virtue ethics, rooted in the narratives and aspirations of specific communities, can be particularly helpful to professionals in discerning appropriate ethical conduct in multicultural settings and interactions. We propose that future directions for research and instruction be expanded from quandary ethics to encompass issues of character

Factors Influencing the Stated Career Goals of Minority Graduate Students in Counseling Psychology Programs

The purpose of this study was to determine the factors that influence the stated career goals that racial and ethnic minority graduate students in counseling psychology make while pursuing their graduate education. A national sample of 118 minority students, representing 50 training programs, participated. Participants completed a career goal instrument and a demographic questionnaire. Results indicated that most counseling psychology minority students preferred combined academic and practitioner career goals, whereas few were interested in pursuingfull-time academic careers; the presence of positive feedback and reinforcement of counseling skills were primary influences on career choices. Findings are discussed in terms of recommendations for training programs and future theoretically based studies.

Multicultural Competence, Social Justice, and Counseling Psychology: Expanding Our Roles

The construct of multicultural competence has gained much currency in the counseling psychology literature. This article provides a critique of the multicultural counseling competencies and argues that counseling psychology's operationalization of multicultural competence must be grounded in a commitment to social justice. Such a commitment necessitates an expansion of our professional activities beyond counseling and psychotherapy. While counseling is one way to provide services to clients from oppressed groups, it is limited in its ability to foster social change. Engaging in advocacy, prevention, and outreach is critical to social justice efforts, as is grounding teaching and research in collaborative and social action processes.

Counseling Psychology in Multidisciplinary Health Settings:

Counseling psychologists have demonstrated a growing interest in the health field at a time when major changes are occurring in reimbursement and service delivery systems. In particular, the need for broad-based comprehensive treatments within cost-effective service delivery models has led to increased use of multidisciplinary staffing arrangements and increased completion among provider groups. In this article, the authors provide a historical overview of a multidisciplinary training component that has operated within a counseling psychology training program since 1979. Lessons learned from this experience are shared, and recommendations are made for the future training of counseling psychologists who seek health-related careers.

Facilitating Adolescent Optimal Development

Competencies and training models for working with adolescents have not been well defined. The literature related to adolescents has focused on at-risk populations, with little attention to healthy and optimal development. Numerous and as yet primarily untapped opportunities are available for counseling psychologists to facilitate adolescent optimal development. This article proposes a training model that incorporates competencies for working with adolescents with the goal of helping them thrive. Information is presented concerning changes in service delivery, current training practices, and methods to infuse information about adolescent optimal development into the curriculum.

Evidence-Based Practice:

A consensus has long existed that the scientist-practitioner model has failed to reflect what was envisioned by the Boulder Conference participants and endorsed by counseling psychology at the Greyston and Georgia Conferences. Counseling psychology's commitment, however, to the scientist-practitioner model has not faltered. Furthermore, developments within the health care system (e.g., managed care, empirically validated treatments, treatment guidelines) demand from psychologists increasing levels of scientific knowledge and a wider range of research skills. Psychology's current commitment to positivist explanation , scientific knowledge characterized by law-governed causal processes, is at the core of the scientist-practitioner split. To integrate scientist-practitioner ideals into a comprehensive approach to counseling psychology training, research, and practice, counseling psychologists should embrace an identity as evidence- based practitioners. Inherent in this framework is a philosophical, scientific, political, and social shift toward an expanded view of what constitutes scientific evidence.

Ethnic Minority Training in Counseling Psychology

This study evaluated the status of multicultural training in counseling programs approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) (n= 41) and compared these programs to (a) clinical psychology programs (n = 104) and (b) existing standards and recommendations proposed in literature, for example, by Bernal and Castro, and Ridley, Mendoza, and Kanitz. Results suggested that compared to clinical programs counseling psychology programs demonstrated significantly higher commitment to multicultural training. However, the effect size of the differences between these two psychology specialties was small. Moreover, normative data from counseling psychology programs indicated that most programs are providing training that leads to, at best, multicultural sensitivity, but very few appear to be providing training that prepares practitioners to be multiculturally proficient. Hence it was concluded that, although counseling psychology programs have potential to make significant contributions to the mental health of racial and ethnic minority populations, significant changes need to be made before these programs yield a critical number of counseling psychologists who can begin to meet the mental health needs of racial and ethnic minority populations. Suggestions and recommendations are made to guide these changes.

Theory and Research on Stereotypes and Perceptual Bias

This article presents theory and selected research on stereotyping and cognitive automaticity as a didactic resource base for multicultural counselor educators. Multicultural trainers can use this information in the classroom to establish the existing scientific evidence indicating that perceptual processes taking place outside of conscious awareness give rise to biased perceptions involving racial or ethnic categories. The objective of this didactic resource is to impress upon counseling trainees the importance of coming to terms with racial prejudice and biases often hidden from conscious scrutiny. In addition to the didactic material, several experiential exercises designed to elicit awareness of biases in personal attitudes and beliefs toward culturally diverse groups are presented. Suggestions for future research are also included.

Reconceptualizing Multicultural Counseling

Some tension appears to exist in the literature between the emic, or culturally specific, and etic, or universal, approaches to counseling with culturally different clients. Prompted by the lack of clear theoretical models for multicultural counseling, as well as by the inability of specific factors to explain treatment effectiveness in general, we suggest that consideration of the common factors found in psychotherapy and healing across cultures provides a useful way to bridge the gap between culturally specific and universal approaches. We believe that the skeleton of universal healing factors requires the flesh of cultural knowledge, resulting in the formulation of multicultural counseling as universal healing processes taking place in a culturally sensitive context. We propose that this perspective (a) may serve as a framework for unifying the diverse body of multi-cultural counseling literature, (b) has some empirical support, and (c) may be useful in guiding future multicultural research, training, and practice.

The Culturally-Enhanced Videofeedback Engagement (CEVE) Framework: Qualitative findings in families of children with disruptive behavior problems

While cultural competence has been promoted as a way to reduce mental health disparities among ethnic minority populations, there remains a gap between theory and practice. This study examined the use of the Culturally Enhanced Videofeedback Engagement (CEVE) intervention as a clinical tool to facilitate culturally anchored shared understanding to foster treatment engagement among ethnic minority families with children with disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) participating in a family clinic. In-depth qualitative analysis of individual interviews compared parents' experiences of the therapy process among 9 intervention families and 10 families participating in treatment as usual. Thematic analysis of semistructured interviews with parents revealed that for families in the intervention group, clinician cultural and clinical competence and the therapeutic relationship were important characteristics of the intervention condition that enhanced parents' experience of treatment.