Multicultural Issues in Counseling, Essay Example

It is important for counselors to gain an understanding of the culture that their clients belong to so that they can use this understanding to provide them with the help they need. Conceptualizing cultural differences in families of color as deficits can lead to bias in service delivery because this causes the counselor to treat their client’s as “different”. In doing so, they are separating them from their own perception of the human experience which can result in a different type of care being offered. It is important for these individuals to consider that a diverse group of patients have similar needs and it is beneficial to treat these individuals equally on this basis.

A therapist or a case manager could become more sensitive to these differences by working with diverse groups and entering these relationships with a feeling of acceptance. As such, the counselor should not hesitate to ask his or her clients questions that allow them to understand the relevance of their cultural and ethnic background to the treatment process. Furthermore, counselors could become more aware of these difference by reading the relevant literature to gain a greater understanding of the populations that they frequently encounter in the workplace. Last, counselors can attempt to gain this knowledge from their supervisors or coworkers who have needed to adjust to this cultural understanding as well. Ultimately, counselors are required to put forth an effort to understand clients from different cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds because they need to offer the same quality of care to patients of different backgrounds. Doing so is the only ethical option and counselors are required to adhere to the ethical code that directs their practice.