Multicultural Counseling and Religion, Essay Example

There is a great significance attached to the issue of the provision of knowledge, the awareness as well as the skills related to the spirituality as well as religion together with the issues of psychosocial development for the purpose of the enhancement of the professional research together with the practices related to the preventive, developmental as well as remedial intervention (Bergin & Jensen, 1990). A positive progress in this respect is based on the realization of some important principles.

• Basically, racism is an integral feature in the lives of the Americans permeating in all cultural as well as institutional aspects.
• The whites have become socialized in to a society of the Americans resulting to their inheritance of the biases, the stereotypes as well as the racist attitudes, the behaviors a swell as the beliefs inherent in the society.
• The pattern of the perception by the whites in the context of social beings  rails a sequence or stages that is identifiable
• The stage of the development of the racial identity of the Whites in the context of cross-cultural encounter has considerable impact on the processes as well as the outcomes of interracial relationships

Contribution of Religion in Multicultural Counseling

In the context of the majority of the clients in Multicultural Counseling, the central aspects guiding their lifes are religion. It is the responsibility of the counselors to identify the best approach responsible for supporting as well as challenging the clients in a manner that is helpful through the incorporation of religion in the process of counseling. The contribution of the counselor is offering of assistance to the client through the incorporation of faith as part of the solutions to dilemma in relationships as well as the entire family (Bergin, 2001). There is a need for the demonstration of some important core aspects during the working interactions with the clients who are religious. Among them includes the following:

• Demonstration of respect for the faith of the client.
• Possession f substantial knowledge in as far as the tradition of that faith is concerned.
• The assessment of the role as well as the importance of the faith of the client.
• The establishment of trust together with the reinterpretation of the understandings of religion

Through the screening of the entire session the students as well as the clinicians are in a position of gaining the benefits from their firsthand perception of the management of the sessions by the counselor together with the application of opportunities for the purpose of deepening of therapeutic relationships (Richards, 1997). It is also important to put in to considerations the importance of the sensitivity associated with the proactive work of counseling the clients from the sexual minority (Shafranske, 1996). In this case, it is the responsibility of the counselors to prepare adequately to approach the work characterized by unique as well as well as universal issues confronting the lesbians as well as the gay in their youth stages of life. The responsibility of the counselors is a gentle assistance for the clients to be themselves. Ethnic as well as racial diversity should also be considered in the process of multicultural counseling. The understanding of the worldview of the client is essential for the purpose of offering opportunities in the process of connecting as well as accumulation of trust on a level that is deep rooted. This is beneficial to the counselors in the process of challenging the counselor towards the development of the skills to cope with the uniqueness of the client

References

Richards, P. S., & Bergin, A. E. (Eds.) (1997). A spiritual strategy for counseling and psychotherapy. Washington D.C.: APA.

Bergin, A. E. (2001). Values and religious issues in psychotherapy and mental health. American Psychologist, 46, 394-403.

Bergin, A. E., & Jensen, J. P. (1990). Religiosity of psychotherapists: A national survey. Psychotherapy, 27, 3-7.

Shafranske, E. (Ed.)  (1996). Religion and the clinical practice of psychology. Washington D.C.: APA.