MULTICULTURAL AND CULTURE-SPECIFIC CONSIDERATIONS2
MULTICULTURAL AND CULTURE SPECIFIC CONSIDERATIONS
Introduction
Understanding families for therapy administration requires an in-depth grasp of their cultural context. Some of the cultural aspects that ought to be captured include the religion, ethnic origin, their sex and the race of the people. The cultural norms must be those that influence the way of life for the group being studied. Culture, in this case, refers to the shared norms, behaviors and attitudes that are transferred from generation to generation. The culture affects the way families operate by controlling the central functionality of the family, the family values, the customers, the music they listen to, the type of food they cook among many other factors. The effectiveness of therapy is thus dependent on how efficiently the therapist can incorporate these variations in administration of therapy.
Culture-Sensitive Therapy
In the past, family therapists have tried to use their previous experiences in the application of therapy to families, but sometimes they did fail due to the lack of similarities in the culture between families. At some point, they even had to gain awareness of their own culture to the small variations when administering therapy. It’s always important for therapists to study individual factors that influence differences in culture as this will help them in pathologizing the minority groups due to their different practices, cultural values, and gender-related roles. The current general approach is not embraced by all communities, but efforts are being made to address the disparity that is existing between communities to offer more personalized therapy. According to Nagayama (2011), when addressing the therapy needs of an Asian family, it’s important to involve the society at large as they tend to be
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interdependent in the community.
In the past few years, the view of cultural diversity has been changing, and there has been needing to address various ethnic identities in the society especially those that share specific values and beliefs. For example, when offering family therapy to the black families in the United States, it’s always important to take into consideration their beliefs based on their origins and also incorporate the new beliefs from the new environment into their lives. Ethnic identifications of a family may offer a pattern on the migration of the community into the family. This translates to a continuous process of changing values, new practices and different perspectives of a people towards their culture in their home country. Having moved into the new country their life is bound to change as the living status of the new country may not be similar to their home country. They may get lower status jobs, find it hard to adapt to the community and also suffer racial prejudice in their new country. This alone may force a change in their perspective on their cultural values and beliefs.
It’s evident that family therapists ought to understand the culture of their clients to offer effective therapy. They have to deal with the increasing diversity among families through learning and understanding the cultural beliefs and values of the families they are dealing they are administering. An ethnic approach that stereotypes some families should not be adopted blindly as this may lead to an ineffective process. Family therapists should understand that there are many factors that should be considered that influence the nature of family therapy to be issues. These include: the
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religion of the people, their level of education and the behaviors associated with the family. Sometimes the adherence to cultural beliefs and values may differ from family to family, or individual to individual. The variations should be taken into consideration when addressing family therapy needs (Zaker & Boostanipoor, 2016).
Multicultural Framework
This advocate for a therapy approach that takes into consideration culture sensitivity in families. It requires the inclusion of beliefs and attitudes associated with families or communities while taking into consideration their culture. Therapists conscious about the culture of their clients usually take into attention the cultures of their clients before any decisions. Taking into attention their culture can help the therapist design the procedures to meet the needs of these clients. Culture-sensitive therapist avoids family generalizations and instead study families separately before they apply the theories. However, for ease families from a particular culture may be grouped after performing a study on them to analyze their sensitivity to culture.
In addition to the study of particular cultures, some professionals advocate for the adoption of a multicultural approach. According to Pedersen (2003), a multicultural perspective should be adopted, this will allow for the flexible study of diverse cultures rather than focusing on a single culture. The therapist values and beliefs in most cases arise from their own cultures. As such, they should be willing to adjust concerning the culture of the family they are dealing with and shouldn’t apply their beliefs on all communities. By understanding the culture of a specific community, the therapist can accurately devise a therapy technique that they can suitably apply in serving that specific family.
Culture specificity
Some of the therapists that have
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been in the field have been advocating for the need to access extensive information for each specific family. Such information will enable them to take into attention the cultural variations when administering therapy. The unfamiliarity among families due to their different cultural values and beliefs make it difficult to apply a universal therapy plan. The world is increasingly becoming heterogeneous hence the need to adopt unique approach when dealing with diverse races and communities.
According to Hardy & Laszloffy (1995), a cultural genogram is important to help the clients to draw relationships based on their origins. Some of the factors they believe should be used include the race, the gender, religion and also how the family or the community moved to the area. By representing information on their family dating back to many years, this can help the therapist to understand the previous experiences of the family, the circumstances for their movement, the gender definition of the family, the roles assigned to the various gender, their religion and the values of the community. The genogram helps the families to respond to questions on the genogram which later help the therapist to respond better to the community. Through the genogram, it's easier to establish the kind of cultures that they would be willing to do away with and those that they cannot do away with.
The therapist should comprehensively understand the development of the family regarding race, their sexual orientation, the gender and the religion. This will then help the therapist to identify the effect of culture on their identity. How the family identifies itself with the culture is dependent on the ethnicity issues they have been facing,
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how those issues were handled and whether the problem was addressed. Sometimes therapists can make mistakes such that they base on experience with a different family to judge the current client. The cultural experiences of people color in the United States may not be the same as those of Native Americans. Therapists need to carefully study these variations as the cultural differences enable them to offer effective family therapy.
For effective family therapy, the therapist ought to differentiate between the cultural patterns that are considered universal and those that are deemed specific to a particular culture.
Therapists should learn to distinguish between universal patterns associated with all families, culture-specific patterns associated with people of a particular culture and idiosyncratic patterns. Our distinctive patterns are those that are associated with a particular family, and they are not necessarily due to their culture. They have to differentiate between these factors when offering therapy to families as this will make them more effective. For example, the families originating in the African continent will tend to show more compassion for each other through helping them manage their education, helping them avoid violence and drug abuse and such related issues that they may feel threaten the survival of the family (Boyd-Franklin, 2003).
Therapists should treat all families as different, and any cultural similarity that may be exhibited by the families should not be the basis for concluding that families are similar. Every family should be studied different from each other even if their history or culture seems the same. For example, there is a common belief that all the families that originate from Mexico have a Catholic origin. It's however important to note
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that some of the families from this region are pagans since they don’t believe in the church and some other religions. Administering therapy on the basis that these families are primarily from the Catholic Church will be wrong and may result in the wrong diagnosis. The most important strategy would be a consideration would be to study families individually to identify their beliefs and values.
Therapists should be very careful before considering universal norms that are shared between communities. Some families may not be party to individual values or beliefs, as such the therapists should be informed of this situation before using such information. The therapists should also pay attention to their way of life such as their cultural influences, the language they speak, their education level, the likelihood they may have been subjected to discrimination and any form of suffering they may have been subjected to in the new environment. For example, most times the white communities may not notice the effects of racial prejudice on the black families considering they have never had such a feeling. However, a study of the experiences of these families can help the therapist to understand the issues the family is facing which can then help them structure the most suitable method to use in administering care to the family. Sometimes holding a general view over families with perceived similar cultures may end up affecting therapy administration since most of the problems that the therapist is expected to will remain hidden (Mignone, Klostermann, Mahadeo, Papagni, & Jankie, 2017).
Therapists should also differentiate between the families that have been in the area and those that recently moved into the area. For
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example, there are expected variations between African American families that have spent over ten years in the United States and those that have recently moved into the United States. As a result of their environments, adaptations to problems will be different. The differences are attributed to the following factors: the period they have spent in the new environment. The more extended the period, the more likely the family will have been influenced by the culture of the local people. Second, the reasons for their arrival may affect their perception towards specific values and beliefs. For example, in some Arab countries, women are limited from performing certain duties or wearing certain clothes. Such circumstances may compel them to leave their countries as they may feel they have been denied certain rights that they should enjoy. Third, the support and nature of the new environment they get. Is the new environment is very welcoming and makes them feel comfortable, they are more likely to adopt some values and beliefs from such a community. Finally is the nature of acceptance the family gets from the dominant in the new environment (Santisteban, Muir-Malcolm, Mitrani, & Szapocznik, 2002).
Ethnicity and Culture
Culture tends to vary with ethnicity. Ethnicity can be defined as unique characteristics associated with a particular social group with shared beliefs and values, and the members can easily be identified to belong to that group. These groups certainly share the country of origin, and they may share history among other things. The ethnic background of an individual often influences their interactions with other communities. For example, people of a particular ethnic origin may be associated with traditions, and this
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may result in being treated differently from the others. Sometimes the ethnic influences are far much stronger than race or religion since they directly affect the individual.
The ethnic background of an individual influences their way of life, how they interact, how they work and how they express themselves. Ethnic beliefs patterns and cultural norms can sometimes become very complicated to understand and need in-depth study to understand the way of life. Sometimes the ethnic beliefs may differ from community-based beliefs; under such circumstances, the therapist will have to perform a critical study before commencing the therapy. The patterns exhibited in the study play a very significant role during decision making. However, it's important to note that sometimes these patterns vary from family to family. When performing the study, it's crucial to conduct an individual survey of every family to avoid generalizations. For example, a family may present a problem with drug use for their son. Based on the ethnic background this may be considered to be a social problem originating from their background especially if the son was exposed to a drug use environment back in Mexico.
Another factor worth considering is the perception of a community towards the family. Some families of African origin hold family dear, and they prefer developing strong relations with family. There is a common perception that kinship is the most important thing and they will always ensure good for the family as they believed the kin would do the same for them. However, with the case of the Latino Americans, they tend to foster relations that exceed the current generation. It's more like a network that allows them to promote
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stronger links with each other. The Arabs on the other hand seemingly don’t call upon the extended family. Their relations with the extended family are weaker since families prefer to handle their issues themselves. Seeking help from the extended family is considered shameful and weakness, probably the reason that has contributed to the weakening relations (Klever, 2015). The Latinos consider family loyalty and responsibility to be something significant, it's probably the reason why most of these families exhibit stronger ties with each other. Some of these families can sacrifice their interests for purposes of safeguarding the other Latino families. Family ancestry matter to some communities, they tend to be loyal to each other especially when they have a common origin. This creates strong ties; therapists should study such scenarios before administering family therapy to the families.
There are those beliefs on family cycle; some communities emphasize the need to keep close ties as such relations extend to life after death. This is mostly the case with the Irish people, for them, death is significant, and whenever someone dies, they celebrate due to the belief that they are going into better life. For the Jewish communities marriage weddings are held in high regard. For them, marriage is the most important transition in the life of an individual. There exist differences regarding how they view the family cycle. These are the specific considerations that family therapists should adhere to while designing therapy models.
Challenges often arise when marriage is cross-cultural. For example, marriage between a Native American and an African American. These two people have different ethnic backgrounds; this means they resulted in sharing certain values for them to
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be a family. It becomes even more complicated for the therapists as this means they have to study the two cultures and identify any similarities or values that they could have resolved to share. Sometimes the society may reject such marriages on the basis that they go against the people’s culture or because the two come from different social backgrounds and should not marry. The family therapists will need to discuss matters culture with the family to get an understanding. The information collected can then be used for purposes of administering therapy to the family.
Conclusion
Evident from the paper, the effectiveness of therapy is dependent on how efficiently the therapist can incorporate variations due to multiculturalism in the administration of therapy. In the world today there are so many cultures with new cultures coming up due to interactions. It’s important for the family therapist to understand the existence of many variations between families hence the need to study individual family cultures. Generalizing cultures has brought undesired results in the past; it’s recommended that a family therapist takes time to study the family they are dealing with. These variations originate from the day to day experiences, religion and the social class they belong to among many other factors. Some of these factors identified with individual families should not be ignored. For example, general facts about the Latino culture cannot be directly applied to Latino culture. Instead, the therapist must take time to study and understand the culture of the particular family before applying therapy.
References
Boyd-Franklin, N. (2003). A Review of: “Black Families in Therapy: Understanding the, African American Experience. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 368.
Hardy, K.
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V., & Laszloffy, T. A. (1995). THE CULTURAL GENOGRAM: KEY TO TRAINING CULTURALLY COMPETENT FAMILY THERAPISTS. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 21(3), 227-237.
Klever , P. (2015). Multigenerational Relationships and Nuclear Family Functioning. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 43(4), 339-351.
Mignone, T., Klostermann, K., Mahadeo, M., Papagni, E., & Jankie, J. (2017). Confidentiality and Family Therapy: Cultural Considerations. ARC Journal of Psychiatry, 1, 9-16.
Nagayama, G. C., Hong, J. J., Zane, N. W., & Meyer , O. L. (2011). Culturally-Competent Treatments for Asian Americans: The Relevance of Mindfulness and Acceptance-Based Psychotherapies. Clinical Pyschology, 215–231.
Pedersen, P. B. (2003). Culturally biased assumptions in counseling psychology. The Counseling Psychologist, 396-403.
Santisteban, A., Muir-Malcolm, J., Mitrani, V., & Szapocznik, J. (2002). Integrating the study of ethnic culture and family psychology intervention science. Family psychology: Science-based interventions, 331–352.
Zaker, B. S., & Boostanipoor, A. (2016, May). Multiculturalism in counseling and therapy: Marriage and Family Issues. International Journal of Counselling and Pyschology, 8(5), 53-57. Retrieved June 25, 2018, from https://academicjournals.org/journal/IJPC/article-full-text-pdf/406254158648