Using Narrative Approaches to Teach Multicultural Counseling

Using Narrative Approaches to Teach Multicultural Counseling

Stella Beatriz Kerl

Narrative approaches to teaching multicultural counseling can assist students in integrating course content with a sense of self. Narrative teaching strategies follow a postmodern view of learning-that is, that truth is constructed through the interaction of participants. Justification for narrative approaches to teaching multicultural counseling and narrative are introduced.

Los enfoques narrativos para enseiiar la consejeria multicultural pueden ayudar a 10s estudiantes a integrar el contenido del curso con su sentido de ser. Las estrategias de la enseiianza narrativa siguen un pandrama postmoderno de aprendizaje-que considera que la verdad se construye por la interaccidn de participantes. La justificacidn para enfoques narrativos para enseiiar la consejeria multicultural y la narrativa se introducen.

s the population of the United States becomes more racially and eth- nically diverse, increased attention is being given to counselors’ and A therapists’ competency in working with people of color. The literature

in this area strongly suggests that the best way to achieve counselor competency is to integrate multicultural issues into all courses within training programs (D’Andrea & Daniels, 1995; Parham, 1995; Sue & Sue, 1999). However, this recommendation has not been implemented in many counseling or psychology training programs. Multicultural training for counselors and therapists is typically accomplished by including one or more specific courses in multicultural counseling within the training program (Ridley, Mendoza, & Kanitz, 1994). Recent studies found that 42% to 59% of counseling programs require a multicultural counseling course (Hills & Strozier, 1992; Quintana & Bernal, 1995). Some programs include multicultural counseling as an elective. There are many approaches to teaching multicultural counseling (Ponterotto

& Casas, 1987), yet research evaluating the effectiveness of teaching strategies is ~~~ ~

Stella Beatriz Kerl is assistant professor in the Department ofEducationa1 Administration and Psycho- logical Services at Southwest Texas State University, San Marcos. Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to Stella Beatriz Kerl, Department ofEAPS, Southwest Texas State University, 601 Uni- versity Drive, San Marcos, TX 78666 (e-mail: [email protected]).

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limited (D’Andrea, Daniels, & Heck, 1991), and “multicultural experts view the purpose and goals of multicultural training differently” (Reynolds, 1995, p. 317). Although research is critical in helping counseling faculty form conclu- sions about what does or does not work, a hermeneutic understanding of the process ( e g , Gadamer, 1960; Heidegger, 1962) would emphasize that research is not objective anyway: It changes as it is interpreted by the reader. Readers bring their own values, motivations, and worldviews to the text. Likewise, students learning the material can only understand it through their own experiences because it interacts with who they are as people. This is also true for faculty teaching the course, so it is important for teachers to determine their own beliefs and attitudes toward multicultural counseling because what they teach changes as it interacts with who they are.

current approaches to teaching P v

Recent articles pointed out several underlying philosophies that inform the teaching of multicultural counseling. Reynolds (1995) identified three primary approaches. The first approach “concentrates on increasing the multicultural awareness or cultural sensitivity of the participants” (p. 317). Reynolds stated that this approach can be conceptualized as the “can’t we all just get along” type of sensitivity training. The goal for counselors in this approach is to develop tolerance and acceptance of differences. The second approach that Reynolds discussed “centers on unlearning oppression and sensitizes participants to the realities of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of oppression” (p. 317). This model takes a sociopolitical viewpoint and looks at diversity within power relationships. The third approach Reynolds discussed concentrates on competency and on “enhancing the attitudes, knowledge, and skills of the participants” (p. 318). This approach may incorporate parts of the other two as it attempts to integrate specific counseling skills with knowledge and awareness.

Carter and Qureshi (1995) developed a typology that identified five approaches to cross-cultural training. The Universal approach (e.g., Fukuyama, 1990; hey, 1987) assumes that all people are basically the same and that counselors need to transcend the construct of race. It is similar to humanistic philosophies and “is espoused implicitly by traditional psychology theory and practice” (Carter & Qureshi, 1995, p. 243). The Ubiquitous approach (e.g., Pedersen, 1977; Sue et. al., 1982) sees all people as having multiple cultures that are situationally determined. The goals for this approach are to have counselors become sen- sitive to differences and to acknowledge and celebrate diversity. The Tradi- tionaVAnthropologica1 approach (e.g., Arredondo, 1985; Ponterotto & Casas, 1987) defines culture as common language, kinship, history, and values. It

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argues that culture is not a matter of social difference or domains of difference but of birth, upbringing, and environment. The Race-Based approach (e.g. Sabnani, Ponterotto, & Borodovsky, 1991; Sue, Akutsu, & Higashi, 1985) looks at culture interactively based on U.S. sociopolitical history and intergroup power dynamics and argues that “effective training requires counselors to proceed through levels of racial identity development” (Carter & Qureshi, 1995, p. 254). Finally, the Pan-National approach (e.g., Bulhan, 1985) views culture globally and biogenically and teaches trainees to comprehend and liberate themselves from Eurocentric psychology.

Thus, goals for multicultural training vary depending on how culture is defined and by an individual’s values regarding diverse populations. So which values do we teach, and how do we know which are most important? A hermeneutic understanding of this question leads to the importance of narrative in teaching multicultural counseling because who we are-our values, our beliefs, our own racial and ethnic experience-will always become part of what we teach and learn.

Many faculty try to teach multicultural counseling by combining several tech- niques, including awareness of self, values, and biases; awareness of clients’ worldview; and culturally appropriate intervention strategies. Although the latter two areas can be taught by helping the students learn information about diverse populations and by teaching specific skills, helping students to become more aware of their own identities in relationship to clients of color can be dif- ficult. This experiential process is often missing in the various approaches. How- ever, because everything that students do regarding people of color will be in relationship to themselves as counselors, it may be the most important step.

It is critical for students of counseling and psychology to work through their own issues of race, ethnicity, and gender because these areas affect clients entering the counseling relationship. Because one or two courses in multicultural counseling are often the only training in diversity issues students obtain, it is important to address students’ sense of their own identity in terms of race and gender. Narra- tive approaches to teaching multicultural counseling can make this happen.

What is a narrative? The concept of narrative comes from postmodern philosophy, specifically from hermeneutic philosophies (e.g., Gadamer, 1960) and social constructionism (e.g., Gergen, 1985). Both Gadamer and Gergen argued that language creates meaning, creates reality, or both. From this viewpoint, there is no objective reality that can be known outside of the sphere of social activity and discourse. Anderson (1997) explained that hermeneutics is not a way to arrive at a true meaning or to find the cause of something. In- stead, “truth is constructed through the interaction of the participants and it is contextual. As such, interpreting, understanding, and seeking truth are never-

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ending” (Anderson, 1997, p. 39). Similarly, Slife and Williams (1995) pointed out that “the social constructionist proposes . . . a way of knowing [that] does not occur within an individual at all. It occurs in the relations among individuals as they converse and negotiate and share their world with one another” (p. 82). In other words, we cannot necessarily know what is true or even real outside our own understanding of it, our own worldview, our own meanings that are embedded in who we are.

A narrative, in this approach, “is a dynamic process that constitutes both the way that we organize the events and experiences of our lives to make sense of them and the way we participate in creating the things we make sense of, including ourselves” (Anderson, 1997, p. 212). Narratives are the ways individuals understand their experiences and their identities, the ways they construct meaning in ongoing relationships. Bruner (1990) referred to narratives as the way that individuals use language to frame their experiences and memories. Narratives are used to help us understand reality and to understand self.

narrative approaches in gender and e t m s

Postmodern philosophy is used frequently in current approaches to gender and ethnic studies in a variety of fields, including sociology, history, anthropology, and literary studies. Researchers in these fields often argue that the official truth about historical events and about other people has been told through the narrative of the dominant social group, the people in power. Thus, there is another truth that can be heard or seen by listening to the narratives of people who have historically not been heard.

In the field of the psychology of women, Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1985) wrote that “conceptions of knowledge and truth that are accepted and articulated today have been shaped throughout history by the male domi- nated majority culture” (p. 5). Gilligan (1982) and Jordon, Kaplan, Miller, Stiver, and Surrey (1991) used the metaphor of voice to argue that if we listen to the stories that women tell about themselves, they seem to have a sense of self that is different, more connected, than the models that standard psychological theories have presented. These researchers use the voices of women to create theories that capture a truth that is different than the one psychology has previously reported.

In the field of history, Scott (1988) argued that history could not be under- stood apart from the way it is culturally constructed, which is especially important in the understanding and interpretation of gender and gender roles. In fact, she suggested that gender is both culturally and historically constructed. Dirks, Eley, and Ortner (1994) wrote that feminist and other forms of theory written by and about underrepresented populations contain a kind of vivid- ness and urgency when discussing power and cultural constructionism. In


these contexts, neither the pervasiveness of power nor the constructedness of identity seems an abstract academic question. Power and cultural con- struction are personally important for women and people of color because they are often the ones being created by the dominant voice, a voice that is not theirs.

In her research about ethnic minorities in the United States, Garza-FalcBn (1998) wrote that the history of Mexican Americans in the twentieth century had been, until recently, seen only through the perspective of Anglo histori- ans who offered to their “audience a cheering nationalism that was tainted with notions of Aryan supremacy” (p. 2). She argued that another perspective could be recovered through narratives from Mexican Americans living at that time. However, she also pointed out that narratives challenging the prevailing view of those in the power structure are, on an ongoing basis, “being erased from normal channels of documentation and communication” (pp. 3-4).

The field of anthropology has long included the issue of narrative, analyzing texts for ethnographic authority. However, although they acknowledge that the categories of the cultures they study are culturally and historically constructed¶ they often do not apply this fact to their own interpretations. Dirks, Eley, and Ortner (1994) wrote that anthropologists have tended to “grant themselves a privileged position, in which their own categories are not subjected to this argument. But. . . their categories are as much products of their culture, their historical moment, and their forms of power as everyone else’s’’ (p. 37).

narrative approaches in multicultural CT)

Why use narrative approaches when teaching multicultural counseling? One important reason is that a narrative approach allows the instructor to discuss power in ways that help students understand the role of power in the experiences (i.e., stories) of others as well as their own experiences of power, dominance, and subordination. Much of literature for women and people of color is written in narrative form. These narratives are similar to stories and histo- ries that students may someday hear their clients tell them. Looking at the role of power in the context of people’s lives becomes familiar to students who learn in this way. Rather than thinking about power in an abstract way that is “out there,” concepts of power become familiar and personal to the students.

Using narrative also allows students to integrate the information and knowledge they gain in the course with who they are as people and, thus, as counselors. Most practitioners recognize the importance of the use of self in therapy. Many counselor training programs also focus on the self in a variety of experiential and practice-related courses. Using narrative is consistent with this approach because it allows the students to focus on the whole self and how it relates to others, espe-


cially people of color. Narrative understandings of therapy allow instructors to make it clear that even careful listening to another person must be interpreted through the self, and thus it is impossible to be objective as a therapist. What happens in the therapeutic relationship is connected to the context in which it occurs, including the self of the therapist, the social environment, and similar variables.

A common narrative approach used in a variety of courses is to have students introduce themselves to the rest of the class. These introductions are an important step to engage the students in the class and to connect them with each other. However, rather than having them simply state their names and interests, an instructor might take this opportunity to begin to have students think about how issues of race, ethnicity, and gender relate to them as selves. Introductions can take the form of having the students tell the rest of the class their own stories about race, ethnicity, and gender (e.g., early memories of conceptions of race, feelings about own race). The instructor may want to be first to tell her or his story to model the task for the students. This practice also allows the students to understand the context of the person through whom the course will be presented. Students who participate in this exercise are often surprised at what they say during the introductions and become aware of others’ reactions to their stories. As they hear what their mouths are saying, they become more aware of their sense of self in relationship with others and with the issues.

Another narrative method is to assign a reflective paper to the students to allow them to explore their own identities related to race, ethnicity, and gender. The instructor can encourage depth and genuine reflection as well as creativity in style and structure. Almost all students who completed this assignment reported that it was one of the most powerful and eye-opening exercises in their course of study. Such an exercise is similar to drawing a self-portrait but with an emphasis on race, ethnicity, and gender. This is a particularly important exercise for White students, many of whom have never thought about their own race and its implications for relationships with others, especially people of color.

The inclusion of theory and research related to White Racial Identity (Helms, 1995) or White Counselor Self-Awareness (Richardson & Molinaro, 1996) is critical in order for such an exercise to be effective with White students. Sue, hendondo , and McDavis (1992) wrote that ethical standards of multicultural competency for White students mean that they “understand how they may have directly or indirectly benefited from individual, institutional, and cultural racism (White identity development models)” (p. 482). However, White students often have difficulty with this because “the White race is considered the oppressor [and] students have affective experiences that include confusion, defensiveness, and guilt” (Pack-Brown, 1999, p. 89). The body of research exploring White racial


identity development helps students put their feelings in perspective and gives them a framework they can use to guide their narrative.

A third and especially important teaching strategy is to use course readings and guest speakers who tell the stories of people of color. Again, many White students have not heard the experiences that are commonplace for many people of color. They may respond to the readings in a variety of ways. One possible response would be for the student to write a letter back to the author stating her or his reaction to the narrative. Another response might be to write their own feelings and impressions of the narrative in a journal or to paraphrase the reading in a journal to “listen” carefully to it. Finally, students might use the narrative readings to role play with other students, taking on the voice of the reading while another student responds as himself or herself. Later in the course, they might also respond to the reading as client and themselves as counselors (e.g., “How might you respond if this person were your client”?).

Comments on course evaluations from students who have experienced a narrative approach to learning multicultural counseling include the following: ‘‘I grew tremendously this semester”; “the personal experiences [were most useful]”; “the interactive process made me grow as a person”; “it stretched me”; and “it changed my life.”

Teaching multicultural counseling using a narrative approach can provide a way for students to integrate diversity issues into their own sense of identity or self. Narratives allow for the inclusion of the themes that other methods may not capture but that are important aspects of the sense of self or identity as it relates to race, ethnicity, and gender. These themes may include students’ dominant or subordinate status and experiential changes related to new awareness of power, oppression, or both. Narrative approaches can assist students in integrating changes in their sense of self related to race, ethnicity, gender, and power, as well as assist supervisors in assessing the impact of multicultural training on their students. Narratives can give a more complex picture of the kinds of identity changes that students face as they become more aware of the impact of race on who they are and who they are becoming.

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Using Narrative Approaches to Teach Multicultural Counseling