ISSUES IN COUNSELING

Race and Gender Issues in Counseling

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Discussion4

Racial Issues in Counseling4

Gender Issues in Counseling4

Recommendations7

Conclusion8

References10

Race and Gender Issues in Counseling

Introduction

This is an essay exploring how race, gender and ethnicity can become an issue in the counseling relationship. Often, counsellors need remarkable patience in working with men especially at the beginning of the counselling relationship. (Hopcke1990, pp.41).

At times when a man in crisis approaches a counsellor, he is seeking whoever is available to offer support and clarification. At other times, the man will make a conscious choice whether he would prefer to relate to a male or a female counsellor. The counsellor needs to decide whether it might be productive to explore this selection issue. In any case, the counsellor needs to keep in mind the different dynamics between a same-gender counselling relationship and an opposite-gender one(Culbertson 1994, pp.96). These dynamics often constitute issues around which the relationship rules can be set. Another most important supposition for culturally sensitive counseling is that counselors can acknowledge the limit of their cultures and their own tendencies on others. Therefore, it is necessary for counselors to know their worldviews and their cultures before assisting and helping their clients. This paper discusses gender and racial issue in counselling.

Discussion

Racial Issues in Counseling

If counselors overlook some basic diversities in people, they could barely be doing what is in the best interests of others, which is an ethical matter. Regardless of their ethnic, cultural, and racial background, if counselors hope to build bridges of understanding between themselves and group members who are different from them, it is essential that counselors guard against stereotyped generalizations about social racial and racial groups. Effective group work from a multicultural perspective involves challenging stereotypes about an individual within a given race. (Marbley 2001, pp.120)

Dobbins & Skillings (2001) write about issues that counselors are likely to encounter as they attempt to facilitate racially diverse counseling groups. These authors point out that group members typically bring with them their values, beliefs, and prejudices, which quickly become evident in a group situation. For Dobbins & Skillings, one goal of multiracial group counseling is to provide new levels of communication among members. This can be instrumental in assisting members in challenging their stereotypes by providing accurate information about individuals. (Dobbins 2001, 37-44)

Gender Issues in Counseling

When a female counsellor listens to a male care-seeker, a counsellor will often experience a set of reactions that are not counter-transference or family-of-origin issues, but have more to do with the way in which she has been conditioned to allow gender roles to structure intimate relationships.

Two of the most prominent criticisms of insight-oriented theories have been the value they place on the counselling relationship as a curative factor, and the lack of “hard data" demonstrating these theories' efficacy in producing client change (Kottler & Shepard 2007, pp.572).

This critique might be losing its credibility in the 21st century, thanks to the new brand-imaging technologies like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission topography (PET) scans ...