Respond to two of your colleagues’ postings in one or more of the following ways:
- Ask a probing question.
- Share an insight from having read your colleague’s posting.
- Offer and support an opinion.
- Make a suggestion.
- Expand on your colleague’s posting.
- Colleague 1: Diana Post a brief description of the cultural consideration you selected. Then, explain two challenges of applying your theoretical orientation to address their cultural consideration when working with couple and families. Cultural considerations is important in social work practice especially when related to uncommon ethnicities. I believe that it’s important to have awareness of how this may impact couples and family you work with. For example, as a Hispanic social worker working with a Chinese couple who suffers from social anxiety there are a few things that I would need to consider. Based on research very few Chinese families utilize services of mental health and therapy. Therefore, it is important to consider how impactful it is to have a rare moment as such. CBT is known to be effective to treat anxiety disorders. I would discuss this intervention approach with couple and collaboratively create a treatment plan. It is frequently noted that Chinese people favor treatment that is directive, structured, and short-term (Chen & Davenport, 2005), as this conforms to the expectations of professionals as authoritative experts. Explain how you might modify evidence-based interventions to be more culturally sensitive and responsive. Justify your response using evidence-based articles. Intervention strategies such as psychoeducation, interpersonal relationship skills, relaxation techniques and problem solving are all good steps to be considerate and direct to what they are accustomed to. However, two challenges that I can foresee being problematic with this is not meeting expectations of the clients and time being a factor. However, modifying how I approach this will be crucial to the results. The time needs to be short term for positive response and meeting the client’s expectations is important specifically in Chinese culture. For modifications in treatment for cultural ethnicities, it is crucial that the therapeutic processes are appropriate for the client, that the treatment progress will be closely monitored, that firm boundaries are maintained, that the focus remains on the client’s therapeutic goals, collaborative relationships will arise, and that therapy is short-term and structured. In doing so these factors will thoroughly help to ensure usefulness of the CBT framework of focusing on present thinking, behavior, and effective communication (Harper, 2003).References Chen, S. W.-H., & Davenport, D, S. (2005). Cognitive-behavioral therapy with Chinese American clients: Cautions and modifications. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 42, 101110. Harper, F. D., & Stone, W. O. (2003). Transcendent counseling: An existential, cognitive behavioral theory. In F. D. Harper, & J. McFadden (Eds.), Culture and counseling: New approaches (pp. 233-251). Boston, NY: Pearson.
- Colleague 2: A’Lexus Post a brief description of the cultural consideration you selected. Then, explain two challenges of applying your theoretical orientation to address this cultural consideration when working with couples and families. I believe Emotionally Focused Therapy is a theoretical orientation that closely considers all cultures. Many cultural differences play a major role in emotions within human nature (Governors State University 2009). Basic emotions are displayed throughout multiple cultures (Karakurt & Keiley 2009) however, rules around the expression of an individual’s emotions are different across diverse cultures. The cultural consideration I chose is using this theoretical orientation to work with a family that does not speak English. It would be very difficult to communicate with this family on a surface level and trying to express emotions will be an even more difficult challenge. Two challenges associated with this cultural consideration would be learning to be culturally appropriate and acknowledging cultural differences and working through language barriers. Another challenge is becoming culturally competent through learning about a new culture, language, and traditions to become culturally sensitive.Explain how you might modify evidence-based interventions to be more culturally sensitive and responsive. Our professional ethics sit within the traditions, philosophies, values, and practices in our community (Shaw 2015). I would modify evidence-based interventions to be more culturally sensitive and responsive by understanding each client’s cultural reality and reflecting them that understanding to improve rapport and break cultural barriers faced between myself and the client (Karakurt & Keiley 2009). Another way of modifying evidence-based interventions to be more culturally sensitive is asking culturally appropriate questions and adjusting the interventions based on the cultural context of the client, making the interventions more client-centered. It would be important to be aware of culturally specific nonverbal and verbal expressions of emotions as well as to adjust interventions based on these observations (Karakurt & Keiley 2009). ReferenceGovernors State University (Producer). (2009). Emotionally focused couples therapy [Video file]. Chicago, IL: Author.Karakurt, G., & Keiley, M. (2009). Integration of a Cultural Lens With Emotionally Focused Therapy. Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, 8(1), 4–14. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1080/15332690802626684Shaw, E. (2015). Special Issue: Ethics in Couple and Family Therapy. AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF FAMILY THERAPY, 36(4), 403–408. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1002/anzf.1132
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