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(PSYC 451) Cross-Cultural Psychotherapy

This course will be an examination of the theory and processes of counseling persons in community, school, and marriage and family contexts from the perspectives of clients from diverse cultural backgrounds by counselors of equally diverse cultural backgrounds. The focus of the course will be on the impact of the counselor’s prejudices, biases, values, ethics, and social/cultural expectations on the client from a culturally diverse background, and the impact of the client’s prejudices, biases, values, ethics, and social/cultural expectations on the counselor from a culturally diverse background. The client must be seen as part of an integrated system of mutually reciprocal components (family, environment, school, social structure, friends, culture, etc.). The counseling context will be viewed from a systematic perspective rather than an individual perspective.

Credit Hours 3.0 Lecture
Prerequisite PSYC 111 and PSYC 450 or permission of instructor
Offered Winter
Programs Psychology (BS)

Course Learning Outcomes

Student will demonstrate an understanding of

  1. An integrative, interdisciplinary approach to cross-cultural counseling.
  2. How the counselor and client must be seen within the context of a social, cultural, familial, and psychological integrated system (a systemic approach).
  3. Cross-cultural counseling in the contexts of school, community, and marriage and family counseling.
  4. The biases, prejudices, values, and expectations of the student relative to the cross-cultural counseling context.
  5. Ethical issues relative to cross-cultural counseling.
  6. How Eastern and Western perspectives can be integrated in the counseling context.
  7. The scientific method, research, and sampling relative to cross-cultural counseling.
  8. Fundamental theories, concepts, and techniques in cross cultural counseling.