Psychology Case
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All job fields come with their own set of dilemmas, struggles, and challenges to get over. Fields that involve the public, such as psychology, hold their own unique barriers. The goal of any counseling is to help people, and in knowing this one logically needs to understand the culture and history of those they are attempting to help. One of the best ways to go across the emotional barriers is to allow the client to feel safe, in this paper I will address approaches to counseling people from an Asian Indian background.
One of the clearest and the maybe most difficult barriers to overcome is language. The native language of India is Hindi; on the other hand their second most used language is English. This makes a solid basis for counseling and bridging the language barrier. As a multicultural counselor another challenge will be the cultural norms, understanding the way a society runs can make your client feel an instant connection. “Understanding personally held beliefs and potential biases allows clinicians to identify and fill personal gaps in cultural competency (Braun, Fine, Greif, & Devenny, 2010).” A well-known distinction between the American culture and the Hindu is the theory of death. In the Christian culture death happens once for all and then the soul goes on to live eternally in either Heaven or Hell.
“Religious traditions are intertwined with ethnic cultural values and may be passed down generationally through cultural socialization (Kaduvettoor-Davidson & Inman, 2012).” The Hindus theory on death is more of a cycle of karma, and reincarnation. In reincarnation the theory states that once the person dies, the soul leaves the body and becomes something else on Earth. If one does not tread lightly this can bring great discord between the client and counselor. Other than faith and language another huge cultural practice is bereavement and burials. “Although the majority of Christians and Muslims bury the deceased, Hindus almost exclusively cremate departed family members. Cremation usually takes place as soon as possible after a person dies, with other funeral rituals following thereafter (Bean & Titus, 2009).” Another practice engrained in the Hindu culture is that of arranged marriages. “Most Indian marriages continue to be arranged by the individuals extended family and reflect economic, religious, political, and social considerations (Madathil & Benshoff, 2008).” This is quite different than the American concept of marriage that is focused on falling in love and choosing your mate based on interpersonal relationships and attraction.
The first step toward over coming the multicultural hurdle is to get rid of the social bias or stigma that maybe socially attached to the culture. Bean & Titus (2009) states that, “when inspecting their values for possible bias, clinicians should investigate the degree to which they hold some stereotypical views regarding members of the Asian Indian ethnic group”