Integrating Diversity into
Clinical Psychology
Neha K. Dixit, M.S.
Doctoral Candidate
Dept. of Clinical & Health Psychology
The Effective Psychologist
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The most important instrument you have is YOU
 Your living example, of who you are and how you
struggle to live up to your potential, is powerful
Be authentic
 The stereotyped, professional role can be shed
 If you hide behind your role the client will also hide
Be a therapeutic person and be clear about who you are
 Be willing to grow, to risk, to care, and to be involved
Personal Characteristics of
Effective Counselors
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Have an identity
Respect & appreciate themselves
Able to recognize & accept own power
Open to change
Make choices which affect their lives
Feel alive & make life-oriented choices
Authentic, sincere & honest
Have a sense of humor
Make mistakes & admit them
Appreciate the influence of culture
Sincere interest in welfare of others
Maintain healthy boundaries
The Counselor’s Values
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Be aware of how your values influence your
interventions
Recognize that you are not value-neutral
Your job is to assist clients in finding answers
that are most congruent with their own values
Find ways to manage value conflicts between
you and your clients
Begin therapy by exploring the client’s goals
Multicultural Counseling
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Become aware of your biases and values
Attempt to understand the world from your
client’s vantage point
Gain a knowledge of the dynamics of
oppression, racism, discrimination, and
stereotyping
Study the historical background, traditions, and
values of your client
Be open to learning from your client
Issues Faced by Beginning
Therapists
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Achieving a sense of balance and wellbeing
Managing difficult and unsatisfying
relationships with clients
Struggling with commitment and personal
growth
Developing healthy, helping relationships
with clients
If the world were a village
of 100 people, there would be…
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere (north and south)
8 Africans
52 would be female 48 would be male
70 would be non-white, 30 white
70 would be non-Christian, 30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual, 11 homosexual
59% of the entire world's wealth would be in the
hands of only 6 people and all 6 would be citizens
of the United States
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death, 1 would be near birth
Only 1 would have a college education
1 would own a computer
What influences your clinical
skills/counseling?
1)
2)
Your positionality (perspectives
resulting from an intersection of multiple
social identities)
Your experiences as a function of
dynamics created by and resulting from
membership in multiple social groups
Complexity of Multiculturalism
Multicultural Issues
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Biases are reflected when we:
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Neglect social and community factors to focus
unduly on individualism
Assess clients with instruments that have not
been normed on the population they
represent
Judge as psychopathological ~ behaviors,
beliefs, or experiences that are normal for the
client’s culture
Values and the Helping
Relationship
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Value conflicts:
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To refer or not to refer
Referrals appropriate when moral, religious, or
political values are centrally involved in a client’s
presenting problems and when:
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therapist’s boundaries of competence have been
reached
therapist has extreme discomfort with a client’s values
therapist is unable to maintain objectivity
therapist has grave concerns about imposing his or her
values on the client
Role of Spiritual and Religious
Values in Counseling
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Spirituality refers to:
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Religion refers to:
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general sensitivity to moral, ethical, humanitarian,
and existential issues without reference to any
particular religious doctrine
the way people express their devotion to a deity
or an ultimate reality
Key issues:
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Can the counselor understand the religious
beliefs of the client?
Can the counselor work within the framework of
the client?
Knowledge of Client Cultures
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Differing Worldviews
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Views about family
Cooperation vs. Competition
Time Orientation
Communication Styles
Locus of Control
Knowledge of Client Cultures
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Beliefs about psychological problems and
therapy
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Sources of problems
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Internal vs. External
Expectations about how therapy works
Counselor’s role
 Client’s role
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Area
Euro American
African
American
Hispanic
American
Asian
American
Native
American
Human Nature
Mixed
Mixed
Good
Good
Good
Person and
Nature
Mastery
Subjugation
Subjugation
Harmony
Harmony
Time
Future
Present
Past-Present
Past-Present
Present
Activity Level
Doing
Being
Being-inBecoming
Being-inBecoming
Being-inBecoming
Social
Relations
Individual
Collateral
Collateral
Lineal
Collateral
Handling Time
Time is not flexible Time is defined
by the rhythm
of social
relationships
Time is
relaxed
Time is a
reflection of
the eternal
Time is flexible
Aging
Respect youth
Respect Elders
Respect
Elders
Respect
Elders
Respect Elders
Belief System
Rational/empirical
belief orientation
Rational/spiritu
al belief
orientation
Rational/spiri Rational/spirit Spiritual/magic
tual belief
ual belief
belief orientation
orientation
orientation
Group
Relations
Competition
Cooperation
Cooperation
Cooperation
Cooperation
Clinician Attitudes
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Overt racist
 overtly hostile, homophobic, racist, ageist, sexist,
judgmental (should stay out of the field)
Covert prejudice
 tries to hide negative, stereotyped opinions but client
picks up cues
Culturally ignorant
 lack of knowledge based on homogeneous
background (need to learn about other cultures
before working with them)
Clinician Attitudes Cont…
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Color blind
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denies differences: "I don’t recognize
differences; I treat everyone the same."
Culturally liberated
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recognize, appreciate, and celebrate cultural
differences; strives for freedom from
judgments of diverse clients
Assumption
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Cultural diversity is a fact of life and efforts
to build a common culture inevitably
privilege the dominant culture
(Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000)