Cultural Creativity Counseling

Firstly, increasing one’s cultural competence is instrumental to becoming a more empathic and understanding person and teacher. Cultural competence involves understanding another person’s culture without judgement and realizing that even if their ideas or beliefs are different, that does not mean they are wrong. If one learns about their students’ cultures and backgrounds, they will be able to speak and interact with these students in an appropriate way. If the students are refugees and come from a traumatic past, teachers should approach any personal questions they have sensitively. Sometimes people have prejudices or believe stereotypes and they may not even realize it. The Hmong people were widely dispersed and no two Hmong people will be the same. It is crucial that teachers do not assume that each person has the same values and

Other factors that can impede effective counseling of Asian-Americans include an internalization of the 'model minority' myth, which views Asians as not needing additional support and counseling, as well as underrepresentation of Asian-Americans in the counseling profession as a whole. Of course, it is important to note that every family is unique, and different family members may perceive their culture in different ways, based upon their

It is a significant struggle for many first or second generation of Asian-American who need to fit in two different culture and expectations sets, especially for who born from early 1980s to late 1990s. On one side, we have to get into the American culture. On other side, we are encouraged to preserve our traditional personality and keep our Asian ethnicities alive. Fail to keep either side of expectations can lead to rejection or culture crisis.

In this era, diversity and cultural competence are extremely important to understand, regarding the foundations of human development in the social environment. Diversity can alter or affect an individual’s behavior in many ways. Diversity is considered when an individual is different, or composed of differing elements. Therefore, diversity can include different nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, class, disability, gender identity, immigration status, political ideology, and religion. At any time, an individual is determined as belonging to another group, different from the majority, the individual is considered to be subject to the effects of diversity. Many children coming from different countries have a problem with language. Not being able to speak the language of the community can cause huge barriers for the children to overcome. Many parents believe that the key to a successful life and fulfillment is to get an education. These parents encourage their kids, that with an education nothing can defeat you. It is also very important for the social worker, or human service provider to be comfortable with diversity, and is culturally competent. Cross-cultured means the individual appreciates and compares the differences and the similarities of different cultures as well as their own.

Many barriers can evolve from people who grow up with no formal education, who only speaking their local dialect, and who have little exposure to people who are different from them. Ethnic people who can acquire a formal education, practice biculturalism, and code switch are able to be much more successful in life. It is a well-known fact that having a formal education has a major impact on a person’s earning potential and life success. Needing to understand and navigate cultures other than one’s own culture is another critical life skill. This is common thread of Dr. King, Fredrick Douglas, Amy Tan’s and myself.

This journal entry allowed me to understand Kim better because it allowed me to hear her perspective of her culture as well as how she viewed herself with in it. The media plays a big role in how certain populations are portrayed. Being an African American I can understand how frustrating it can be to see your race degraded and stereotyped daily by the media. It saddened me to hear at such a young age she wanted to become instantly Americanized. I understand the obstacles and the pressures she faced in school because of her identity. I instantly thought back to my grade school experience and how the foreign students were treated by students as well as teachers. I began to empathize with Kim during this interview.

Anxiously awaiting its contents, the high school senior stares at his mailbox. He has been awaiting a response for months from his dream college. He has endured the endless questions from friends and family, "Did you hear from that college yet?" He has spent many a night he should have been sleeping lying in bed wondering whether he would be heading to his dream school in the fall. He has read numerous books and has done serious research on just what it took to get where he wanted to be. He continues to stare for hours, shaking from either anticipation or fear, though he cannot decide which. Finally his parents arrive home and encourage him to open the letter. He then opens the box. Now I ask this. Should this senior’s ethnicity impact

Examining the Current State of the Profession Paper CCMH/510 July 9, 14 Examining the Current State of the Profession Paper Derald (2013) stated, “The adage “counselor or therapist, know thyself” is the basic building block to cultural competence in the helping professions.” (P.6) Part of connecting with clients includes the separation and awareness of the helping professional versus the other person. The helping profession has not always embraced the awareness of self in regards to culture. To be culturally competent the helping professional should conceptualize the issue with the understanding of the cultural background of their client. In this paper I will summarize significant historical changes in society that influenced

counselor may address is cultural aspects. (Jacobs, 2011) In a Qualitative article titled Managing racial anger: A Critical Skill in Cultural Competence Alexis D. Abernethy (1995) addresses how some ethnic populations may come to a therapy session having anger as being the main complication. The issue might revolve around job discrimination, job dissatisfaction etc. However, the counselor may show empathy before understanding the client’s situation or perspective, which may create a dilemma (Abernethy, 1995, p. 97).

“Model minority” is a term first used by sociologist William Petersen in a 1966 New York Times article that applauded Asian-Americans as an example that other minorities should follow based on their academic and economic success. 8 Although there are numerous Asians that achieve great success in the United States, the term and concept of “model minority” is a myth because as mentioned before, there are many Asian immigrants that live under poverty line, especially lowest success rate in Southeast Asians. 1 The stereotype of model minority has a detrimental effect on health of the Asian immigrant children because it encourages Asian American students to be silent and discrete about their mental problems. This is because they are afraid to be seen as failures to the society and disappoint their parents. Asian American children are known to succeed academically but parents and health providers must attend to and properly assess them for their mental health needs,

• They respect independence and value hierarchical relationships. • Dan Hocoy, person being interviewed and working as a clinical psychologist, explains that most Asian Americans go to their families for help and guidance than professions who are not familiar to them.

Elizabeth Wong is a Chinese-American playwright who wrote “The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl”. In her essay, she describes her resentment of her Chinese roots and her protest against her parents who want her to learn and appreciate her heritage and culture. Her essay exposes the pressure that society places on immigrant children to fit into the dominant culture. The proposed solutions to fixing this problem is thinking and implementing long term plans. I make the argument that his ethical problem of society placing such a heavy burden on immigrant children to fit into the dominate culture can be solved with the implementation of multicultural classes, language classes, additional counselors and child psychologists in public schools.

The article, “Group counseling with South Asian immigrant high school girls: Reflection and commentary of a group facilitator,” focused on integrating South Asian girls into a new school in a new country through group counseling. The first author was South Asian herself, therefore, she felt that she was competent to work with these students. She explained that the South Asian people are collectivist therefore; a group setting would match the student’s cultural norms and values. The authors begin by stating that the numbers of immigrant children in this country have grown 66 % between 1995 and 2002. This makes a huge impact on urban schools, where 95% of these immigrants attend school. The authors also mention that the Asian American population is one of the fastest growing immigrant population in the United States and stress that relationship building is an important factor in acclimating to a new country.

Where I come from and how I was raised has a lot to do with the cultural values instilled in me today. My parents were from different classes in society, so I have a mix

Introduction My sister Evett, now age 28, was born in the Philippines on October 7, 1987. She grew up in Manila and attended an international private school. After completing high school at Brent International School, she went to University of British Columbia majoring in Biology and minoring in Psychology. After graduating she worked at BC Children’s Hospital, Childhood Obesity Foundation, and in the UBC Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Since moving, then she has grown accustomed to the Canadian culture and resides in Richmond with her husband. She was raised in a protestant Christian home, and is ethnically Chinese (Fuchian and Foochaw). Evett has a unique and strong personality. I will be using the Five-Factor model to analyze her characteristics, since this model has received the most support and attention from personality researchers over the past few decades. It has been replicable in studies with items using English-language trait words, by dozens of researchers through different samples, item formats, and language (including Chinese, Indian and German) every decade over the past 50 years. Thus, historically the Big Five trait taxonomy has the highest consensus in personality trait psychology (Larsen & Buss, 2014). Many psychologists today continue to endorse the five-factor model in various applied settings and research designs (Larsen & Buss, 2014). This leading taxonomy consists of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion (surgency),