In this assignment, you will organize a case studies. Assess and provide treatment recommendations from a multicultural perspective for each of the following cases. Your answers must include specific citations from your textbook and one or more supplemental readings.
This assignment is not about general counseling principles and practices that you might use with all clients. Instead, it asks you to describe specific ways that you might adjust your counseling in light of the client's identified culture and your own. Support your ideas with specific examples.
You must include at least two specific in-text citations and end-references for each essay, including page numbers. The citations and references must be from both your textbook and other assigned readings for this lesson. Each citation must have a corresponding reference. Follow APA format for your citations and references.
Make sure you have answered all questions prior to submitting. Once you have submitted your answers, you will not be able to return.
For each essay, answer all of the following questions completely.
1. How would your own cultural identity affect your approach and/or treatment of this client? List potential generalizations and stereotypes that you may have about this client, based on cultural background. Describe some of your own cultural assumptions, beliefs, and values that might create barriers in the counseling relationship.
2. What are some cultural and sociopolitical reasons that this client might mistrust you? Using multicultural counseling concepts, describe how you would work with this client to build trust.
3. Knowing what you should know about the communication patterns of your client's culture, what elements of communication (both verbal and nonverbal) would impact your effectiveness as a counselor with this client? Give specific examples of how these differences in communication style might cause misunderstanding or create barriers in the counseling relationship.
4. Describe at least three kinds of microaggressions that could occur as you counsel this client and how you would try to avoid them.
5. What approaches would you consider in counseling this client, given the cultural background?
Support your ideas with specific examples. Make sure to cite any information you quote or paraphrase from other sources in APA format.
Case Study: Marcel
Marcel is a 21-year-old African American man, self-referred for inpatient treatment due to drug and alcohol abuse. He is currently unemployed and homeless, and has charges pending due to a number of bounced checks written over the past several months. Marcel reports that both of his parents were drug addicts and that he experienced physical, sexual, and emotional abuse throughout childhood at their hands. His father died of liver disease at the age of 37.
Marcel also reports that at the age of 14, he was kicked out of his family's home because his father suspected that he was gay. Although they live in the same town, he has not had any contact with either parent for 7 years. Marcel describes his relationship with his older sister as "fair."
Marcel is not presently involved in a steady relationship, but does have a network of friends in the local gay community with whom he has been staying off and on. At the time that he left home, Marcel survived by becoming involved in sexual relationships with older men, many of whom were also abusive. He has had numerous sexual partners (both male and female) over the past 7 years, has traded sex for drugs and money, has had sex under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and has been made to have sex against his will. Marcel identifies himself as bisexual, not gay.
Marcel first used alcohol at age 14, when he had his first sexual encounter with a man. He began using other drugs, including inhalants and marijuana, by age 16 and amphetamines and cocaine by age 19. At 21, four months prior to entering treatment, he began using crack.