week 11 CD, G & FD

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Northcentral University *

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6103

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Psychology

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Oct 30, 2023

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Synthesizing My Learning Isabel Del Valle Department of Marriage and Family Sciences, Northcentral University MFT-6103 v3: Cultural Diversity, Gender, and Family Development Dr. Smita Kapoor October 22nd, 2023

How I Have Changed Throughout the Course Being a MFT you learn to have a systemic way of thinking. One of the fundamental concepts I have learned during my courses including this one highlights the importance of a systemic way of thinking for MFT. MFTs learn and understand that individuals are a part of a more complex system that includes their family (Gutierrez, 2018). A client’s family system is the main focus of MFT because therapists look at their client’s problems as an expansion to their family’s dynamics/system. This way of thinking transforms our perspective into looking at the bigger picture rather than just looking through a magnifying glass at the individual. Systemic thinking will serve as a foundational framework to my work. Although I have had prior knowledge in some of the concepts we spoke about, this course helped me learn these topics more thoroughly. This course was based on cultural diversity, gender, and family development. The main goal of this course was to help extend our knowledge on cultural diversity a well as cultural sensitivity. Therefore, this course helped me learn more in depth how these concepts are incorporated into individual and family therapy by digging deeper in our client’s cultural background. Throughout this course I have definitely learned a lot. I genuinely think I significantly improved personally and professionally. My improvement certainly stems from the readings and assignments I’ve completed over the last 2 months. I personally chose to go down the path of MFT because I consider myself to be respectful, understanding and open about one’s cultural ties to therapy amongst other things. In the following I will be talking about five of the most important things I learned throughout this course. The first topic I am choosing to speak about is intersectionality. “Intersectionality is the interaction between gender, race, and other categories of difference in individual lives, social

practices, institutional arrangements, and cultural ideologies and the outcomes of these interactions in terms of power,” states Davis. I find it extremely important to understand and constantly update yourself on information about a client’s demographics when it comes to working through their problems. The second topic I chose is cultural sensitivity which ties in with the first topic I spoke about. This course definitely played a firm emphasis on cultural sensitivity/competence. I learned that being aware as well as sensitive to our client’s cultural backgrounds and differences plays a major role in making therapy effective. I think recognizing and being aware of my own possible biases is critical to providing my clients with ethical and competent mental health care. There is so much diversity and it is important to remain inclusive. The third topic is empathy/active listening. I believe my empathy has helped lead me down this path and my ability to communicate and empathize effectively. I found empathy highly important when I had to create then reflect on the scenarios we had created. These two skills in my opinion are crucial to gaining my client’s trust and building a good rapport. The fourth topic I chose is self reflection. During this course we had to take a look at our own weaknesses and give ourselves constructive criticism in order to self reflect and be more prone to self awareness. Therefore, this course taught me to get into a habit of self reflecting on my own biases and perspectives so that I do not impact my interactions with my clients negatively. The power of my self awareness encourages me to better manage and mitigate potential biases I may have that I might not be aware of. This self reflection and awareness can help ensure a more ethical and effective therapy for my clients. My final topic is self care. I think self care is just as an important topic as the others because my mental health can affect myself and my clients. If I am going through a burnout and I

do not do anything about it then I am compromising my physical and mental health, my career as well as my client’s physical and mental health, progression, and trust. My self awareness also ties in with this topic because I have to know when I need help in order to be there for myself and my clients. Stereotypes of Self a. Most Prevalent Stereotypes The older I have gotten I have definitely become more self aware of stereotypes I occasionally hold towards others. An example of a stereotype I have held against others is that I tend to sometimes have preconceived notions about the client’s family dynamic. To go into further detail because MFT looks further into the individual’s presenting problems by acknowledging their family system, I have caught myself thinking that the client’s problems were caused by the family system when that may not always be the case. Because of the level of self awareness I have I am able to catch myself about these preconceived notions and so I am able to not let it impact my clients. Another example of a stereotype I find myself aligning with is religion. During my upbringing, I grew up in a religious and strict household, therefore, my opinion may tend to be biased toward a client’s background. I only say this because growing up I blamed religion for the things I was either allowed or not allowed to do. I always felt like I was being held back from being my truest self. When I was trying to figure out my identity as a teen I felt like God was always judging me or that I would be a disappointment to my parents. Therefore, I believed that religion was toxic and a way to control/brainwash others. Therefore, my self awareness has taught me to approach each of my clients with respect as well as an open mind from any preconceived notions I have had in the past along with the

negative idea of religion when each client’s situation has its own and unique background. This is a crucial part of who I want to be as a person as well as what type of therapist I want to be. I want to ensure my clients feel heard and understood. This awareness will help me provide unbiased therapy. b. Stereotypes Others Hold Towards You I have noticed many stereotypes towards myself as I grew older. These stereotypes include my ethnicity, my gender/sex, and my age. I have had people look at me as too young to be a knowledgeable therapist and think I am less qualified. Although I understand that someone else can have more experience than me being that I am just becoming a new therapist I think my age plays a role in how others think of me. To manage this I like to express my dedication and understanding of the Marriage and Family Therapy field. I also like to express that as the years go on and the more experience I gain I will be continuously learning more and evolving to society. Another stereotype that I have noticed is my sex/gender as a female. Although this does not relate to therapy I have had many situations where men have been surprised at the amount of knowledge I have with cars. I cannot say I know a lot about cars but I know my fair share because my father always wanted me to know a bit so I would not be taken advantage of. Not too long ago a guy saw me putting air in my tires and asked if I knew what I was doing so I felt slightly offended because I felt like me being able to put air in tires was towards the fact that I was a female. c. Stereotypes Towards Yourself I most certainly think the stereotype I hold towards myself the most is self doubt. I think the fact that MFT is such a different and more complex field than regular therapy I sometimes

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