Cultural Humility on Client-Counselor Relationship

Cultural Humility Reflection
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Cultural Humility Reflection
This course has helped me to learn essential things about the client-counselor relationship. For instance, I have learned that cultural humility entails the counselor’s awareness of understanding the cultural experience and background of a client. In addition, multicultural competence refers to a person’s ability to interact, understand, and appreciate individuals from other cultures and their belief systems, which are different from that of a person. This reflection paper focuses on power in the context of the client-counselor relationship.
Before learning about power in the client-counselor relationship, I had several assumptions. In particular, I used to think that the counselor should dominate when having a conversation with a client. I knew nothing about cultural humility and multicultural competence, meaning that I did not know when the counselor or client should have power. In addition, I thought that the counselor needs to ask questions to the client so that the individual can understand various things that would facilitate coming up with the most effective solution. However, creating an authentic relationship is not based on the counselor’s dominance during counseling sessions. Moreover, I did not know that stigma, privilege, stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination against specific people can lead to a power imbalance in the client-counselor relationship (“Power Balance PPT,” 2022). As such, my lack of understanding of power limited me to be a good rehabilitation counselor.
In the course of this week, I have obtained various alternative perspectives about power in the client-counselor relationship. Specifically, I have learned that the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP), entitles clinical rehabilitation counselors to meet all ethics-related preparation standards (Chapter 3, n.d.). Power imbalances usually affect self-reflection and learning without forgetting individual and institutional accountability. Erving Goffman, a sociologist, assert that stigmatized people are not entirely accepted in society based on their character or trait, which might be unemployment or physical characteristic (“Power Balance PPT,” 2022). On that note, I have learned how stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, and privilege can lead to power imbalances in the client-counselor relationship. A rehabilitation counselor should identify factors that might cause power imbalance and address them to create and maintain a good relationship with a client.
My current understanding of power in the client-counselor relationship emanates from the comprehension of cultural humility and multicultural competence. I have learned that i...