AT 5240 Cross Cultural Issues
This course covers the multicultural counseling and psychotherapeutic theories and techniques of practice used by marriage and family therapists, professional counselors, and art psychotherapists and studies counselors’ roles in developing cultural self-awareness and identity development while promoting cultural social justice. Students learn individual and community strategies for working with and advocating for diverse populations and explore counselors’ roles in eliminating biases and prejudices. Other topics include cultural competency, which includes understanding the processes of intentional and unintentional oppression and discrimination, including experiences of race, ethnicity, class, spirituality, sexual orientation, gender, disability, and their incorporation into the psychotherapeutic process. Students learn to integrate and understand how cross-cultural mores and values impact the individual in society while developing a familiarity with a wide range of racial and ethnic backgrounds common among California’s population, including, but not limited to, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans. The effects of socioeconomic position on how poverty and social stress affect the individual’s mental health and recovery are also explored.