Domain I: Acknowledge the Ubiquitous Nature of Culture in Counselling
CC 1 Cultural Sensitivity
Engage in cultural self-exploration as a foundation for cultural sensitivity towards client cultural identities and relationalities.
Recommended Reading
Collins, S. (2018). The cultural embeddedness of counselling: Appreciating the complexity and intersectionality of client–counsellor cultural identities. In S. Collins (Ed.), Embracing cultural responsivity and social justice: Re-shaping professional identity in counselling psychology (pp. 51-70). Counselling Concepts. https://counsellingconcepts.ca/
The first core competency in the culturally responsive and socially just (CRSJ) counselling model (Collins, 2018) involves critical reflection on client and counsellor cultural identities, defined broadly to include Indigeneity, ethnicity, nationality, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, religion, and social class. It is important for learners to engage in a process of continuous reflection on self, on practice, and on self-in-practice (Collins et al., 2010), which begins with cultural self-exploration as a foundation for awareness of, and sensitivity toward, client cultural identities. In the coming together of counsellor and client, their unique cultural identity narratives and lived experiences become resources for, and influences on, the counselling relationship and process. However, openness to other begins with openness to self and a commitment to active engagement in self-discovery.
The learning activities in this guide have been designed to be evocative of both emotion and thoughtful critique. If an activity evokes a strong reaction that leaves you with lingering discomfort or distress, please seek out appropriate supports in your local community or through your educational institution.
CRSJ Counselling Key Concepts
The activities in this chapter are designed to support competency development related to the key concepts listed below. Click on the concepts in the table and you will be taken to the related activities, exercises, learning resources, or discussion prompts.
Cultural Awareness
The two quizzes below are designed to give you a sense of your current level of cultural awareness by examining your beliefs and assumptions about (a) counselling practice and (b) various nondominant populations. This is intended as a learning tool from which you are invited to create your own continued competency goals. These surveys are completely anonymous; no information is collected about you, and no tracking of IP addresses is possible. You will gain the most insight by being honest with yourself.
Click here to start Part I of the quiz
Click here to start Part II of the quiz
You will receive a prompt at the end of the quiz that varies by score. The self-assessment quiz is based on the assumption that cultural awareness is a journey that will continue throughout your life and career.
[Permanent link: [https://pressbooks.pub/crsjguide/chapter/cc1/#selfassess]
Cultural Identities
Choose one of the major world religions with which you are unfamiliar. You may need to do an Internet search to identify options; try to be inclusive as possible. Most religious or spiritual systems or worldviews address some or all of the questions below. Feel free to add additional questions. Use the Understanding Religion or Spirituality template (MS Word version) to complete your analysis. Then compare and contrast what you discover in your research with your own religious or spiritual beliefs and worldview.
- What are the reference points for meaning-making (e.g., higher power(s), ancestors, nature, leaders, self)?
- What are the core values, virtues, or ethics that characterize this religious or spiritual belief system?
- How is religion or spirituality passed on over generations (e.g., manuscripts, oral traditions, art)?
- How are human beings positioned in relation to other animate or inanimate entities (i.e., What are the human values, responsibilities, and privileges that govern the interactions between humans and other entities)?
- What are the religious or spiritual motivations, goals, aspirations, or rewards?
- To what degree are these goals positioned in the here-and-now or in the afterlife?
- What are the core principles (i.e., assumptions, beliefs) that support these religious or spiritual goals?
- In what ways does this belief system target or influence thoughts, emotions, behaviours, or relationships?
- What are the core practices or rituals (e.g., prayer, ceremony, community service) that support the religious or spiritual goals?
- How does this belief system support the creation of community?
- What are the inclusion or exclusion criteria for that community?
- How are diversity and social justice conceptualized within this belief system?
- What is the relationship of this religious or spiritual community to other belief systems, dimensions of cultural identity, and communities?
Note that I have chosen language above that is grounded in counselling and psychology to deliberately position religion or spirituality as a potential influence on counsellor and client mental health and well-being. How has your exploration of an alternative belief system influenced your cultural understanding of yourself and others?
[Permanent link: https://pressbooks.pub/crsjguide/chapter/cc1/#explorereligion]
Deconstructing social class identity (Self-study)
[Contributed by Fisher Lavell]
Although people develop a personal class identity, it does not evolve in isolation, but rather as a complex, fluid, and dynamic interaction between person and environment. There is a saying that most working class people are one paycheque away from the street, and this may also be true for you. It has become more of a reality for many people, through the economic and international crises in recent years, and has impacted their social class identity. This is also a common experience for newcomers to Canada, who quite often are unable to continue on in the professions in which they trained and worked in their home countries. Consider the social class analysis below, which draws on the following scenario.
Eli’s social class identity can be understood drawing on the following model.
Elements of Social Class Identity
| An audio file is provided to the right for individuals who prefer an oral description of the diagram. |
- Class background refers to your past class background, including family income, housing, parent(s) employment, education, class culture, community status, neighbourhood characteristics.
- Current class access refers to your current access to various communities, resources and power based on socioeconomic status, education, intersecting cultural identities, and other forms of social capital.
- Class identification refers to the dominant or nondominant groups that you identify with through family, friends, or community, as well as your internalized class assumptions and biases.
- Class consciousness reflects your ability to perceive, understand, and consciously address classism, social stratification based on class, systemic barriers and privileges based on class, and so on.
Reflect critically on your social class identity and the factors that have influenced your social class position. How might social class differences, whether overtly acknowledged or not, between you and your clients influence the development of trust and rapport?
For Fisher’s current writing see: https://www.fisherlavell.ca/.
[Permanent link: https://pressbooks.pub/crsjguide/chapter/cc1/#socialclassidentity]
Cultural Sensitivity
This is the first Canadian Heritage Minute produced in a language other than French or English. Take a moment to appreciate the cultural richness of this moment, without or without understanding Inuktitut.
© Historica Canada (2016, October 20)
All models of multicultural counselling ground cultural sensitivity in awareness of client culture. You cannot anticipate fully the cultural backgrounds of clients you will encounter in your practice; however, as much as possible, you are responsible to be well informed about how lived experiences of Indigeneity, ethnicity, ability, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, class, and religion vary across persons and peoples. This background information must always be held tentatively, because of within-group differences and the idiosyncratic nature of personal cultural identities.Check out one or more of the following resources to increase your cultural awareness of diverse populations within Canada. In many cases, it is important to understand historical as well as current cultural contexts. Many of these links are to Historica Canada.
- Black History in Canada
- Canadian Society for the Deaf
- Acadian Culture
- Asian Heritage in Canada
- Canadian Francophoniea
- Indigenous Peoples
Identify additional gaps in your knowledge of culture, and seek out credible sources to fill in those gaps. You may want to review Collins (2020) Professional Writing in the Health Disciplines, Section 3. Establishing a Scholarly Foundation, for suggestions on how to select appropriate information sources that are scholarly, professional, and free of cultural bias.
[Permanent link: [https://pressbooks.pub/crsjguide/chapter/cc1/#celebrating]
Identity Narratives/Stories
One of the central foci of the CRSJ counselling model is the counsellor’s awareness of their own cultural identities. We all bring our cultural selves into our professional roles and into each relationship with our clients. Our cultural identities influence our way of being in relationship; our values, beliefs, and worldviews; the lenses we apply to understanding other people; and the ways in which we are positioned within society. In this activity, you will reflect critically on the various aspects of your personal cultural identity, both those with which you are most comfortable and those that may be less well understood or critically examined.
Select a creative way to represent some of the key aspects of cultural identities that influence who you are as a person and how you engage with the world around you. You may choose to use photos, collage, music, poetry, video, or any format or medium other than a written essay. Then identify 2‒4 elements of your cultural identities in which you have gained new insights, and reflect critically on how these influence your personal identity narratives or stories. For example, you may have taken your gender identity or your physical or mental ability for granted previously and not questioned your identity development or relative social location in this area. Or, you may not have noticed before a particular theme that runs through your overall cultural identity development. Attend to (a) the meaning you make of new insights, (b) the emotions that have been evoked or revealed, and (c) implications for who you are, or who you want to be, as a counsellor.
Finally identify two learning goals related to your own cultural identity development. Consider how you might prepare yourself to lean into and examine critically these less comfortable or conscious elements of your identities.
[Permanent link: https://crsjguide.pressbooks.com/chapter/cc1/#culturalprofile]
Lived Experience
How lived experience shapes personal cultural identities (Self-study)
Our understanding of the impact of cultural identity may be enhanced by situating our awareness within specific contexts or experiences. Review your Personal Cultural Identities Inventory from the Exploring the factors influencing personal cultural identities exercise. Then, take a few moments to recall and record a couple of life events that are connected in some way with one or more aspects of your cultural identity on the Lived experiences and personal cultural identities template (MS Word version). Reflect on the meaning of these experiences in terms of the evolution of your personal cultural identities. Consider how other experiences may have shaped your self-identification differently.
[Permanent link: https://crsjguide.pressbooks.com/chapter/cc1/#livedexperience&identity]
This exercise is intended to increase your awareness of the many ways in which gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation matter in our day-to-day lives. Over time, we tend to become accustomed to messages or images that are frequently repeated, especially if they do not have an immediate impact on our self-image, relationships with others, or sense of freedom to make our own choices. This exercise requires you to take a fresh look at your own world through the lens of a lesbian or transgender woman’s experience. Move through your world for a 24-hour period “as if” you self-identify in one of these ways. Attend to the images, messages, practices, and interactions that you observe. Identify examples that reflect prevailing ideologies about sexuality. Record your observations in the A day in the life inventory (MS Word version). It does not matter if you are male or female, cis or transgender, straight or gay; you are likely to be able to identify examples that you normally miss when you are not paying particular attention.
Once you have made your observations for a 24-hour period, review your list and answer the following questions:
- What observation caused you the most surprise or concern? Why was this observation so significant?
- What specific experiences or observations might allow you to build a bridge of understanding and cultural empathy with your 2SLGBTQIA+ clients? Look for similarities in the effects of the items listed in columns 1 to 3.
- What personal experiences can you identify that would allow you to empathize more fully with persons who differ from you in terms of gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation?
- What changes might you make to your environment or way of being in the world to decrease the impact of negative sexual norms and dominant discourses on those around you?
[Permanent link: https://crsjguide.pressbooks.com/chapter/cc1/#aday]
Personal Cultural Identities
Exploring the factors influencing personal cultural identities (Self-study)
The following figure illustrates the cultural dimensions, systemic factors, relationality, personal contextual factors, and *isms that feed into each of our cultural identities. The tendency for many of us is to take these factors for granted and leave them largely unexamined, unless we experience cultural oppression that brings these variables to the foreground. Even then, however, we may explore our ethnic identity and nationality, but fail to reflect critically on our sexual identity development or the impact of gender.
| An audio file is provided to the right for individuals who prefer an oral description of the diagram. |
Take some time to complete the Personal Cultural Identities inventory (MS Word version) identifying the factors that you consider important to your personal cultural identity. Pay attention to any influences that you may have taken for granted or ignored previously.
Consider the following questions for reflection:
- What brings our awareness to some elements of cultural identity more readily than to others?
- How might this tendency toward a lack of cultural awareness in some areas influence how you view the world or how you view your clients?
- When you consider one or more of your current clients (or individuals you work with in another capacity), how complete or incomplete is your awareness of their personal cultural identities?
- What influence might this have on your effectiveness in working with these individuals?
[Permanent link: https://crsjguide.pressbooks.com/chapter/cc1/#exploringpersonalidentity]
References
Collins, S. (2018). Embracing cultural responsivity and social justice: Re-shaping professional identity in counselling psychology. Counselling Concepts. https://counsellingconcepts.ca/
Collins, S., Arthur, N., & Wong-Wylie, G. (2010). Enhancing reflective practice in multicultural counseling through cultural auditing. Journal of Counseling & Development, 88(3), 340-347. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6678.2010.tb00031.x
Lavell, F. (2018). Storying the lives of the working class: Attending to class at the intersections of identities. In S. Collins [Ed.] Embracing cultural responsivity and social justice: Re-shaping professional identity in counselling psychology. Counselling Concepts. https://counsellingconcepts.ca/
APA 7 Tips: References and Citations for Learning Activities
If you are pulling general ideas from the introduction to this chapter, then you can cite and reference the chapter as whole. There are no page numbers for chapters in this ebook, so you can omit that portion of the reference.
- In text citation = (Collins, 2022).
- Reference entry = Collins, S. (2022). CC1 Cultural Sensitivity. In S. Collins (Ed.). Culturally responsive and socially just counselling: Teaching and learning guide (2nd ed.). Counselling Concepts. https://pressbooks.pub/crsjguide/chapter/cc1/
However, to cite and reference a particular activity, I suggest the following formats. I consider each learning activity as a discrete entry in the ebook. For this reason, you may want to use the URL for that activity rather than the ebook or chapter URL.
- In text citation for content paraphrased from the Self-assessing cultural awareness learning activity = (Collins, 2022, Self-Assessing Cultural Awareness section) or (Collins, 2022, “Self-Assessing” section). The second version can be used if you want to shorten the section title.
- Reference entry = Collins, S. (2022). Self-assessing cultural awareness. In S. Collins (Ed.). Culturally responsive and socially just counselling: Teaching and learning guide (2nd ed.). Counselling Concepts. https://pressbooks.pub/crsjguide/chapter/cc1/#selfassess
Normally you would list a specific chapter in the reference list, because this is an edited collection. However, other contributors have added learning activities withing certain chapters, rather than entire chapters. To fully recognize their authorship, I suggest the following format if a specific author is listed on a learning activity, .
- In text citation for content quoted directly from the first paragraph of the Deconstructing social class identity learning activity = (Lavell, 2022, Deconstructing Social Class Identity section, para. 1) or (Lavell, 2022, “Deconstructing” section, para. 1).
- Reference entry = Lavell, F. (2022). Deconstructing Social Class Identity. In S. Collins (Ed.). Culturally responsive and socially just counselling: Teaching and learning guide (2nd ed.). Counselling Concepts. https://pressbooks.pub/crsjguide/chapter/cc1/#socialclassidentity
2SLGBTQIA+ = Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, plus other choices people make to self-identify along lines of gender identity and sexuality.
