Essay On Cultural Competency

Cultural competency is the ability to have an understanding of different cultures points of views and world knowledge. It is important to realize that although people will strive to have cultural competency, it will always be something we are moving toward, not something we can have completely for all cultures. Furthermore, people must understand how their own culture can change their view of other people and create biases that may not be noticeable without this culturally competent awareness. Being open to and learning about how other people view and experience the world and events in it is essential to cultural competency and a necessary part of working with others (Lee, 2006). As counselors, cultural competency is even more notably essential. Building cultural competency can be the key that allows for clinical rapport to be created and allow a client to feel comfortable and safe with a counselor. A counselor that is able to listen and hear the client through their own point of view is important to guiding the …show more content…
There are biases in the mere nature of counseling and the research it is based on. In the past, counseling and psychology was lead by a research team of well-off, white men. These men are the men that created the beginning of counseling. Not to say these men did not lay a solid foundation, but, they missed quite a bit of the population. Women, Native Americans, African Americans, Immigrants, LGBTQs, all these people experience the world through a different lens and their experiences are very different from the original white men that created counseling. Counseling is growing, but there is no growth quite rapid enough to keep up with the diversity of people in this world. Knowing all of this, cultural competency in awareness of the limits of counseling research is essential before entering a counseling