Multicultural Therapeutic Communication

Question 1

What is CULTURE

Answer 1

Collective, shared understandings and practices that groups of people share.

Dynamic, changing and adapting to a complex social world

Question 2

Language within Culture

Answer 2

Central. Provides structure to thoughts, ideas and interpretations of the world,
Our understanding, and
How we express ourselves

Question 3

CULTURE and HEALTH

Answer 3

Influences understanding and experience of health
Lifestyle, values and beliefs

Question 4

Intersectional cultural groups

Answer 4

Ethnicity and ethnic identity
Religious
Geographical
Age
Occupation
Social class
Gender
Sexual identity

Question 5

Worldview

Answer 5

Be aware of our own culturally learned assumptions and cultural biases

Be aware of others beliefs, attitudes, values and history

Question 6

NOT cultural competence

Answer 6

Stereotyping

Using “recipes” to work with all clients from a specific culture

Over-emphasising importance of culture as a form of rationalisation

Understanding clients culture but not our own

Question 7

IS cultural competence

Answer 7

Respect multiple cultural ways of knowing, seeing and living

Celebrate benefits of diversity, ability to understand and honour differences

Recognising it is an ongoing journey involving critical reflection

Flexibility to change in response to new situations, experiences and relationships

Question 8

Explicit/Conscious Bias

Answer 8

Very clear about feelings or attitudes, related behaviour is intentional

Eg verbal or physical harassment, exclusion

Question 9

Implicit/Unconscious Bias

Answer 9

Outside of awareness, may even be in direct contradiction to advocated beliefs and values
Automatic, influences mood and behaviour in subtle ways

Question 10

How do we mitigate implicit bias?

Answer 10

I ntrospection
M indfulness
P erspective taking
L earn how to slow down
I ndividuation
C heck your messaging
I nstitutionalise fairness
T ake two

Question 11

Cultural competence - AWARENESS