CHAPTER 12

SOCIAL JUSTICE COUNSELING/THERAPY

Multicultural Counseling

Multicultural counseling and therapy must be about social justice providing equal access and opportunity to all groups being inclusive removing individual and systemic barriers to fair

mental health treatment insuring that counseling/therapy services are directed

at the micro, meso and macro levels of our society

Locus of Control

Internal control (IC) refers to people’s beliefs that reinforcements are contingent on their own actions and that they can shape their own fate

External control (EC) refers to people’s beliefs that reinforcing events occur independently of their actions and that the future is determined more by chance and luck.

Locus of Responsibility

This dimension measures the degree of responsibility or blame placed on the individual or system

Understanding Individual and Systemic Worldviews

Worldviews composed of our attitudes, values, opinions, and concepts, but they also affect how we think, define events, make decisions, and behave

Formation of Worldviews

Worldviews are formed on a continuum:

internal locus of responsibility (IC-IR), external locus of control

internal locus of responsibility (EC-IR), internal locus of control

external locus of responsibility (IC-ER), and external locus of control

external locus of responsibility (EC-ER)

Cultural Competence for Mental Health Agencies

1. Cultural Destructiveness: Programs that support oppression (e.g. Tuskeegee)

2. Cultural Incapacity: Not intentionally destructive but still believe in White superiority

3. Cultural Blindness: All people are the same and Western helping methods are applicable

Cultural Competence for Mental Health Agencies

4.Cultural Precompetence: Looked at “artifacts” seeing weaknesses in serving minorities

5.Cultural Competence: Diverse staff at all levels—higher stages of cultural identity awareness

6.Cultural Proficiency: Very rare—high levels of cultural competence—seek knowledge to develop better practices