Multiculturalism and Social Justice in Counseling (By: Michele Babcock-Nice)

Multiculturalism and social justice in counseling are areas necessitating increased understanding and competence. This essay addresses the revised American Counseling Association (ACA) multicultural and social justice counseling (MSJC) competencies (Ratts, Singh, Nassar-McMillan, et al., 2015). Identified will be committee composition and controversial text. Addressed will be competency-meaning to this author, and ways of competency-inclusion in education and practice. Finally discussed will be difficulties regarding competency-integration into education and practice, and ways to lessen challenges.

Multicultural competence is “having…the ability to work effectively across diverse cultural groups and…expertise to treat clients from certain culturally diverse groups…[and]…minority and underrepresented groups” (Tao, Owen, Pace, & Imel, 2015). Social justice in counseling means understanding “societal structures…that marginalize and oppress individuals,” while broadly-addressing inequalities (Roysircar, 2008). The competencies have expansive personal meaning, though are not all-inclusive. An example is that the committee was diverse, though mostly included men and minorities. Most counselors are Caucasian (Hays, Chang, & Havice, 2008), with White women warranting inclusion. Further, divisive wording throughout the competencies, identifying counselors as “privileged and marginalized,” should be revised (Ratts, Singh, Nassar-McMillan, et al., 2015).

There are several ways to include the competencies in education programs. Students can be required to complete relevant courses and intern at diverse facilities. Another way is to require achievement of specific continuing education credits. Potential barriers to achieving this include finances and time needed for program completion. Ways to overcome these barriers are obtaining student loans and adding educational requirements.

Counselors must take opportunities to experience diverse cultures and social justice issues, aimed at practice-application. Therapists must periodically check-in with clients during sessions to ascertain understanding. Challenges to applications in practice may relate to personal background and beliefs. Another challenge may relate to low degrees of diversity in some areas. Counselors must motivate themselves to expand experiences and apply competencies with broader populations to overcome challenges.

Over two decades ago, Sue, Arredondo, and McDavis (1992) encouraged multicultural competency implementation. Those standards were recently-revised, adding social justice competencies. Concerns remain, however, with this overdue revision. Challenges exist regarding competency integration into education and practice, though difficulties can be overcome. The MSJC competencies provide a framework for counselors regarding associated knowledge and skills.

References

Hays, D.G., Chang, C.Y., & Havice, P. (2008). White racial identity statuses as predictors of White privilege awareness. Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Education and Development 47 (2), 234-246.

Ratts, M.J., Singh, A.A., Nassar-McMillan, S., Butler, S.K., & McCullough, J.R. (2015). Multicultural and Social Justice Competences in Counseling. American Counseling Association.

Roysircar, G. (2008). A response to “Social privilege, social justice, and group counseling: An inquiry”: Social privilege: Counselors’ competence with systematically determined inequalities. The Journal for Specialists in Group Work 33 (4), 377-384.

Sue, D.W., Arredondo, P., & McDavis, R.J. (1992). Multicultural counseling competencies and standards: A call to the profession. Journal of Counseling and Development 70 (4), 477-486.

Tao, K.W., Owen, J., Pace, B.T., & Imel, Z.E. (2015). A meta-analysis of multicultural competencies and psychotherapy process and outcome. Journal of Counseling Psychology 62 (3), 337-350.

Advertisement

This Valentine’s Day, Practice Love and Understanding (By: Michele Babcock-Nice)

Water Heart Design (from http://www.newevolutiondesigns.com, February 14, 2015)

It is St. Valentine’s Day, a day for love and romance, especially as reflected in our culture and history. Valentine’s Day is a day that is important for couples, though it is also important for everyone. On Valentine’s Day, everyone can show a little more love, respect, appreciation, and understanding toward each other.

I’ve already heard the national news today of a plot to kill people in a mall in Canada that was thwarted. Later today, I heard about a cartoonist in Denmark who was killed – an artist who apparently depicted Mohammed in a negative manner. There are also likely so many more countless tragedies, hate crimes, and killings that have occurred around the world.

Today – as every day – however, should be a day for spreading love, kindness, compassion, and understanding. Do not be the person who is ugly toward or who hurts others. Take the opportunity to do an act of kindness for another.

For those who are unable or unwilling to practice loving kindness and understanding, my heart and prayers go out to you. I understand that, sometimes, life experiences may make it more difficult to love, but it should not be an excuse to avoid doing so.

On this day of all days, we must open our hearts and practice loving kindness and forgiveness. Of course, that does not mean that we should fall victim to being hurt for doing so, however setting a good, positive example may be all a person needs for his or her spirit to be uplifted, even for one day.

How will you practice love, kindness, and understanding toward others today?

Challenges in Mental Health Care: The Sickness v. Wellness Perspective (By: Michele Babcock-Nice)

Mental health care is a challenging, but rewarding field.  There are many positive sides of mental health care, and also areas that need improvement.  One of the biggest rewards of mental health care is observing and experiencing progress, recovery, and a return to wellness of clients.  Healing, recovery, and a return to wellness of clients in mental health settings requires patience, understanding, respect, and sensitivity.  Agency and organizational stability is also needed for clients in order that they receive optimal care.  While each agency and/or organization has its own culture, a culture in which workers live in fear of becoming a statistic in extremely high turnover is unhealthy in itself.

As an individual working toward licensure in the mental health profession, I am one whose perspective is from a position of wellness.  First and foremost, one must view a person as a person.  To perceive and treat a person with respect, kindness, nonjudgment, and impartiality are requirements in supporting and empowering the wellness, healing, and recovery of clients.  In the counseling profession, one based on a view of wellness in people, there exists a positive and supportive hope for the overall optimal health of the individual.

This view is different from many other mental health professions in which the general view of the client is one of sickness.  Certainly, approaching an individual with a perspective of what can be improved is helpful, and for insurance purposes involving payment for services rendered, a diagnosis of the client is required, however it is my perspective that viewing the client from a wellness standpoint is much more healthy for all involved rather than judging a person as being sick.

Those who view and describe an individual as a “sick person” have already negatively judged him or her.  They have not viewed the person as a person, but as an “ill person.”  Such a perspective held by such individuals causes them to treat the client differently, as one who needs more and more treatment, more and more medication, more and more confinement.  In these situations, the positive view of wellness is gone, and is replaced by a judgment that the “sick person” is unable to become well.

While clients have challenges to achieving and maintaining wellness, it becomes even more of a challenge when many in the mental health field view clients as sick, and only they as the professionals who hold those views have the power and expertise to make them well – or they have already judged that they will never become well.  A professional who approaches a client from a perspective of wellness (a perspective that is in the minority), therefore, faces even more challenges, not only for themselves but also for their clients when others view them as sick and unable to become well.  A person is still a person, regardless of their diagnosis or disorder.  A person is still a person, and has the capability of becoming well.  A hopeful perspective toward client wellness must exist in the mental health profession – rather than client sickness – in order that clients are supported and empowered to experience that wellness.

A further challenge in agencies and/or organizations in which a “sickness” perspective prevails is that experienced clinicians fall into the trap of believing that their views and judgments about clients are the best – that they are the experts.  Certainly, the experience of a veteran clinician is extremely valuable in treating clients, however experienced clinicians who believe that only their views, judgments, and culture of sickness are the most helpful approaches create a potentially dangerous situations for their clients.  Clinicians of all levels of experience must be open-minded to considering and perceiving different views – including those from a wellness perspective – so that their clients receive optimal care and so that they profession, itself, can grow and develop in a healthy way.

Clinicians who view clients from a perspective of illness and negative judgment place their clients at risk for further illness.  Clinicians who are set in their ways of expertise toward mental health treatment, and who are unable to be open-minded toward viewing different perspectives regarding it have already erected walls around themselves that are harmful for themselves, their clients, the culture of their agency/organization, and the field of mental health.

What clinicians must always place as a primary priority is that people are people.  As such, people should be treated with dignity, understanding, kindness, respect, and sensitivity.  If a perspective of client wellness is lacking or absent, clients will likely experience a more difficult road to recovery and may not achieve wellness.  What is healthier – being an “expert” clinician whose views of client illness cause him or her to be closed to considering a client’s optimal recovery, or being a clinician who treats a person as a person, and who applies a wellness perspective that supports rather than negatively judges the client?  You be the judge.

“Happy Father’s Day!” (By: Michele Babcock-Nice)

Father’s Day Cards for my Dad, June 16, 2013

Wow, it’s Father’s Day already!  The time goes by so fast – year after year, the time flies by.  My dad will be 70 years old this year, and will celebrate his Golden Wedding Anniversary with my mom.  His only grandson turned 10 years old last month; and there’s so much more to come!  This is a big year for my dad.

About my dad, I can say that he has “been there” for me as much as possible and as much as he is able to and capable of.  No doubt, this is much more than many fathers out there, and I am extremely thankful for it.  Throughout my life, I have thought about certain qualities of my dad that I would like for him to practice or exhibit more, though I have come to learn as I have gotten older that one cannot change someone, that it is better to do my best to accept what there is and not change what I cannot.

I am thankful for my dad.  I have a loving, caring, supportive, protective, and wonderful dad.  While he encompasses all of those qualities and more, he is not perfect – as no one is – and I have come to be more accepting of that.  I remember as a child that I would sometimes view other children’s fathers and pick out the qualities in them that I would like to add to my dad.  But then, there were also qualities in the other kids’ dads that I didn’t want in my dad, too.  So, while I already and always love my dad, I came to accept him as he is more as I got older.  Perhaps my view as a child was immature and unrealistic, though I had my ideas of what a dad “should be.”

My dad has definitely earned an A+ in the fathership department.  Every day, he proves himself as a loving, caring husband to my mom, father to me, and grandfather to my son.  He is there for us and does as much as he can for us, with love and compassion in our best interests.  No doubt, there are many others out there who would put up a fight to gain a dad as wonderful as mine.

There are some qualities about my dad that are fitting for him, and that have helped and supported him in his life.  He is not a gossiper, and generally tries not to change others.  While he can be judgmental, he is not political, nor does he have a big ego.  He is not always out to prove himself to others or to the world.  He is simply himself.  Take it or leave it.

And, one has to take time to get to know him in order to fully understand the man whom he is.  As a mother to my dad’s grandson – his only grandchild – I often see a soft spot in his heart for him.  That is wonderful to see and experience, and is something I rarely saw when I was growing up.  It is great to observe that my dad now has the time in his life to invest quality emotion in my son.  He can do that now as a retired senior, and he deserves it after working so hard for most of his life.

My dad is the father to me that his father was not to him.  My dad has been kind, caring, and supportive of me and my son 99% of the time.  For that 1% that he has not been, I understand that the 99% he has given me is his 100%, and that is okay with me.  My father has striven to be the opposite of his own father, in the area of care, love, and compassion toward family.  My dad’s father treated him so terribly that I wonder if he even considers that he was his father.  I feel sorrow and sympathy for my dad that he experienced from his father what no one should experience from anyone.  May God forgive his father for not being a “father” in the true essence of the word.

So, on this Father’s Day, it is time to show our thankfulness, respect, and appreciation to our fathers, particularly those who are loving, caring, compassionate, and supportive.  Perhaps the dads who do not embody those qualities will have good role models in those who do.  We must remember, and be blessed and thankful for our loving and good fathers.  Thank you, Dad; and Happy Father’s Day!

“Happy Mother’s Day!” (By: Michele Babcock-Nice)

My Son’s Mother’s Day Drawing of and Message to Me, May 9, 2013

This week, I was voted #1 mom in the world by my son!  🙂  Being a mom is a wonderful thing!  It is an experience that cannot be replaced, and must be lived every moment of every day.  I love being a mom to my son.  As a mom, I do my best to invest as much quality time and care into him as possible.  Each and every day, I feel and know that I have been blessed by God to be a mom.  My child is the only one I will ever have; and I always do my best to act in ways that will benefit him. 

Not only do I have compassion, care, understanding, and nurturance for my own child, I am concerned for the welfare and well-being of all children.  Children live in a world that caters to adults, including adult interests, needs, and wants.  Sometimes, people overlook what is most beneficial for children, and make decisions and take actions that best serve adults.  As a society that I hope becomes more enlightened, I am one who encourages increased understanding, appreciation, rights, and protections for children.  And as a mom, I believe this is imperative for the benefit and well-being of my child, as well as children throughout the world.

On this Mother’s Day, let us honor, remember, and appreciate our moms.  And, for those of us who are moms, let us remember why we became moms.  Each mother is a role model for her children, and has been given a great responsibility to raise, care for, protect, and nurture her child(ren).  In our world of increasing adult self-interests, it is vitally important to remember and support mothers, so that they can provide for and do what is best for their children.    Thank you to my son and extended family for remembering, honoring, appreciating – and most of all – loving me on this Mother’s Day.  🙂