The revolutionary climate of the 1960s within U.S. society challenged the existing boundaries of civil rights to include racial/ethnic minorities. Concurrently, an emergence of leading racial/ethnic minority scholars in counseling and psychology set the stage for the extensive examination of the influence of individuals’ cultural backgrounds (i.e., values, attitudes, shared history, customs, race, habits, social rules of behavior, social status, perceptions of locus of control and responsibility) on psychological development and treatment process and outcomes in counseling relationships.
Culture was perceived as the lens through which individuals viewed and interpreted the world, and a growing number of professionals explained differential patterns in diagnoses, treatment, and counseling outcomes by highlighting practitioners’ inattentiveness to differences between clients’ cultural backgrounds and the primarily Eurocentric norms promoted by many practitioners. In addition, the predominance of White Americans within the profession seemed to perpetuate the legacy of racist attitudes, which assumed superiority based on differences in phenotype and culture. The term that describes this characteristic of seeing one’s own community norms and group identity as the models against which all others should be judged as aberrant, strange, and inferior is ethnocentrism. Although, much of the literature highlights attention to White majority group members’ ethnocentrism, it is important that readers note that all individuals who have strong cultural group identity or who have little awareness of a group identity have the capacity to assume an ethnocentric stance in day-to-day activities.
Positive versus Negative Effects
The ethnocentric perspective can have both affirming and detrimental implications for self-concept and interactions with others. Social identity theory purports that as individuals understand themselves, the following personality qualities are enhanced: personal identity, affiliation with others within group, confidence, understanding of self, psychological well-being, and self-esteem. However, the sole or primary culture-specific focus can negatively affect individuals’ ability to accept the relativism of their and others’ cultural identity.
However, in spite of this mix of both positive and negative characteristics associated with a strong positive group identity (one aspect of being ethnocentric), many individuals assume that such is automatically equated with only negative implications. Empirical evidence supports the notion that one can simultaneously have a strong positive group identity and accept the legitimacy of the culturally different. Nevertheless, the most effective strategy to balance the effective expression of respect for both self and other, when the two value systems collide, remains somewhat unclear.
由于经验证据支持以下观念:个人可以同时具有强大的积极群体身份和尊重其他群体的认同,因此必须有效地有效地有效地弥合自己与所有客户之间存在的任何差异。然而,尽管在所有认可计划中进行多元文化咨询培训的任务,但这种能力在从业人员中差异很大。
辅导员在辅导方面的民族中心主义
Practitioners’ ethnocentric responses to clients are spontaneous and, too often, sources of unconscious, psychological harm to clients who persist in the relationship. Clients with strong positive self-concepts will prematurely terminate the counseling relationship. The following are examples of common errors made in counseling relationships, when ethnocentrism is not monitored: use of negative judgment words to describe the clients’ experience, behavior, or primary support network; pathologizing differences and using assessments without considering population-demographic characteristics on which the measures are normed; engaging clients based solely on perceptions of phenotype or stated group identity; responses that indicate unawareness of one’s own identity; unwillingness to examine transference or countertransference (i.e., consistently defining clients’ responses in counseling as resistant to intervention); expressed insensitivity or lack of respect for clients’ perception of experience associated with their unique group membership; premature problem-solving and advice-giving based on what the counselor believes the client ought to be or do; generating alternatives without considering the negative implications for ingroup and outgroup membership or preparing the client for potential shifts related to proposed changes; distancing oneself from the client by expressing no understanding of the client’s experience; not specifically addressing stark differences between self and client that might influence the client’s perception of the relationship and of the counselor as a person (i.e., sex, race, ethnicity, age); disaffiliating from one’s group or client’s perceptions of one’s group when client expresses concern about counselor’s group membership (i.e., I’m not racist; I’m not sexist; I’m not like all of the others like me, I’m different); not inviting the client to share perceptions whenever there is any indication of counselor’s insensitivity. As a result, the client’s culture is not respected, and the counselor’s culture is not used in a manner that enhances the therapeutic working alliance. The increased probability of inaccurate assessment results, unstable rapport, insufficient collection of important information, inappropriate diagnoses, and negative outcomes are results from such interactions. Sensitivity is warranted particularly with clients who are ethnocentric in their own identity.
提出以民族为中心的客户的担忧
以民族为中心的客户可能会表现出各种呈现的关注:跨群体的互动困难,包括难以找到和维持纽带,理解共同点和接受差异;更高水平的不安全自我身份可能会对个人的自尊和自我概念产生直接影响;关于适应的问题;以及与他们自己的民族中心主义认识有限有关的问题。这些担忧需要辅导员的干预,以增强民族偏爱与民族中心主义,从而不为了不结束客户。为了在咨询方面的最佳结果,从业者必须有效地监测自己的民族中心主义。
Effects of Ethnocentrism in the Counseling Relationship
咨询行业试图通过多元文化咨询来监测咨询关系中民族中心主义的现象,该过程是指从一种文化/种族/种族背景的训练有素的专业人士与不同文化/种族/种族背景的客户互动的过程中for the purpose of promoting the client’s cognitive, emotional, psychological, and/or spiritual development. The acquisition of culture-specific knowledge has become the norm as diversity increases within the general populace. Some scholars have developed counseling models that provide a guide for practitioners to self-monitor ethnocentrism within sessions. All are efforts to minimize harm to clients because of unmonitored ethnocentrism. However, key questions remain unanswered: Is cultural relativism a real or ideal training objective? Can practitioners who maintain ethnocentric attitudes and beliefs effectively counsel culturally different clients? Can practitioners effectively and strategically self-monitor ethnocentrism during the counseling session in a manner that benefits the client? With increasing diversity within both the general populace and graduate student cohorts in counseling programs, what are ways in which training programs could strategically maximize the degrees of multicultural competence among all graduates? Finding answers to these questions will facilitate a clearer understanding of how ethnocentrism might be addressed more effectively in both training and service delivery.
References:
- Declemer,D。(2001)。自尊心的关系,群体认同和自我选择与小组内偏爱的关系。社会心理学杂志,141(3),389-430。
- Fish,J.M。(2000)。人类学可以为心理学做什么:面对物理嫉妒,民族中心主义和对“种族”的信念。美国人类学家,102(3),552-563。
- Gaertner, L., Iuzzini, J., Witt, M. G., & Orina, M. M. (2006). Us without them: Evidence for an intragroup origin of positive in-group regard. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 426—139.
- Phinney,J。S.,Lochner,B。,&Murphy,R。(1990)。青春期的种族认同发展和心理调整。在A. Stiffman&L。Davis(编辑)中,《青少年心理健康问题》(第53-72页)。加利福尼亚州纽伯里公园:圣人。
- Roysircar, G. (2004). Cultural self-awareness assessment practice examples from psychology training. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 38, 658-666.
- Steward, R. J. (1998, March-April). PAR—A theoretic model for self-assessment and practice toward multicultural counseling competence. Paper presented at the American Counseling Association World Conference, Indianapolis, IN. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED419185)
- Sue,D。W.(2004)。白人和民族单一文化主义。使“隐形”可见。美国心理学家,59,761-769。
- Verkuyten, M. (2005). Ethnic group identification and group evaluation among minority and majority groups: Testing the multiculturalism hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 121-138.