Lesson 2: Ethics, Multicutural Competence, and Wellness

Attention

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:

  • Identify standards of ethical practice
  • Understand ethics and conducts practice in a professional manner (MHRT/C Outcome)
  • Identify personal multicultural biases
  • Awareness of prevalence and common effects of trauma (MHRT/C Outcome)
  • Identify the components of the Narrative Theory of Counseling
  • Apply intentionality in a counseling interaction

Teaching

Ethics

As an introduction to the field of counseling, we are going to focus on some major points:

  • Ethical practice
  • Multicultural awareness, including the unique experience of trauma
  • Basic Narrative Theory of counseling (as opposed to Counseling Theories)
  • Intentionality

 

Click HERE to review the American Counseling Association's Code of Ethics

Click HERE to review the CRC/CCRC Code of Ethics

Trauma

We are very often dealing with the overall impact of some form of trauma. We often assume that something happened that leads a person to feel and act the way they do. So, to best understand a person's behavior we need to understand the impact of trauma.

Read this Article titled The Impact of Trauma: How Best to Help

Consider the various ways in which someone might experience trauma...it may be personal (something that happened to them) or it may be vicarious (something that happened to someone else...and this is sometimes impacted by how well they knew the person).

Assessment

Lesson 2 Quiz

  1. Read the article above on the Impact of Trauma. Describe what motivates individuals to come to counseling and consider how the unique experience of trauma constitutes a difference in "culture" between you, the counselor, and your clients.

Possible Class Discussion

One of the most important differences between a beginning counselor and a professoinal counselor is "intentionality". This refers to the idea that we don't do counseling "shooting from the hip"...everything we do we do for a reason. We are learning skills in this class that when delivered well, will bring about predicted results.

Share about a "supportive counseling" moment in your life where you said something and it "backfired". Analyze how your "intent" might not have been the same as the "impact". Propose how you might have better approached that situation to match your "intent". (You can also use an argument...a place where we say a lot of things we don't intend to say...as an example in this discussion.