Blog 8: CACCM

I found the article this week rather interesting.  I attended high school in a very small, rural town with absolutely no diversity.  Not only did the school lack diversity, but the entire town did.  Middle class, Caucasian families made up the majority of my little town growing up.  There was one African American girl in my high school and she was adopted and therefore part of the same middle class Caucasian family.  When I went to college nothing changed.  Again I chose a small liberal arts college with very little diversity.  I in no way chose the school because of the lack of diversity, but looking back on it now, it may have aided in my feeling so comfortable there.  After college I got a job as an Admissions counselor in a post-secondary school right outside of Lancaster city.  My job was almost a culture shock to me.  Of course I was never a naïve person and I have always tried to be as accepting of other cultures as possible, but up until this point, I had very little experience with any diversity in my life and so working with an extremely diverse group of students was very new to me.  I love that aspect of my job, but at the beginning it was difficult because I found myself judging people based off of stereotypes.  I had to do a lot of presentations in the York City High School my first year at work and I found myself nervous to talk to some of the students because I assumed that they would think I was a “dumb white girl.”  I did not even know these students and I was already labeling myself for them.

In relation to the article, I found it so interesting how much emphasis they put on the counselor becoming aware of their own culture and background before they begin to counselor others.  It “encourages psychologists and counselors to realize that they may hold detrimental views of culturally different clients” (Byars-Winston & Fouad, 2006, p.189).  I found myself nodding as I was reading this. It is so true that sometimes unknowingly we assume things of others just because of things that may have happened to us in our past.  As a counselor it is important to realize those things and not harbor those feelings towards our clients.  Secondly, the article explains the importance of not just avoiding topics about culture.  I have often found myself doing that or just avoiding a topic because I feel like talking about it means that I am discriminating against that person.  I would convince myself that if I did not talk about it, then I was “color blind. ”  If we address our own culture-specific assumptions than we can be more open to discussing them along with how culture may be affecting our client.

Byars-Winston, A. M. & Fouad, N.A. (2006).  Metacognition and multicultural competence:  Expanding the culturally appropriate career counseling model.  The Career Development Quarterly, 54(3), 187-201.