Cultural Self Assessment

Cultural Self-Assessment Part B
The awareness of oppression and the varying type of privileges that different individuals have in a diverse populations is important in clinical work because these experiences shapes how a client views the world, how the client behaves, and how the client views himself. Issues in diversity may be a contributing factor to a client’s symptoms or may be causing conflict in the client’s relationships or other areas in the client’s life. For some clients, the possibility of experiences related to diversity as contributing to their symptoms may not have crossed their mind. However as counselors, we can introduce this possibility and work with clients to see if issues in diversity is an area where healing needs to take
A thorough understanding means we become aware of our stereotypes and bias, making it less likely for us to apply those stereotypes or biases onto the clients. Being aware of how issues in diversity affects our own lives, helps us to better able to empathically attune to our clients and also be cognizant of the fact that our differences, be it race, gender, age, religion, or any other category, may deter the client from full expression of their experience and to process through with the client how that may feel.
Issues in diversity are widely saturated in mass media so much so that ethnocentricities, stereotypes, and discriminations have been normalized and accepted as the truth. The normalization of marginalization seeps into daily interactions causing harm to a person’s psychological well-being and when experienced overtime can have deleterious effects. For some, the negative effects of discrimination or prejudice begin in childhood or before the understanding and awareness of discrimination has even occurred. As an example, I have salient memories of a friend in high school that struggled with her
Over the semester, I have become cognizant of my feelings of being “in-between”. I feel that I am not entirely American yet I am not fully Taiwanese. Sometimes I have encounters where the other person is surprised I can speak English so well, yet other times I have encounters where the other person is astounded I have maintained fluency in speaking mandarin. This awareness brings new challenges for me, as I struggle to find a context in which my cultural identity belongs. In considering my cultural identity, I thought of other Taiwanese immigrants, and recognize the varying degrees of acculturation and language proficiency among individuals leading to feelings of being alone. Additionally, It has been challenging for me to recognize my experiences of being oppressed or discriminated against. This difficulty I have realized has to do with the normalization of marginalization, but also because parts of my personality fits those of Asian stereotypes, making it harder to discern between acts of prejudice versus critiques of my personality. Another challenge is that of conveying my cultural competency to clients in a way that demonstrates I can empathize with their experience, although I can do my best to be open and show curiosity, acceptance and empathize, I question if it will be