Sociocultural Issues In Counselling

For this assignment I should like to provide a fictional case study, portraying the counselling of a client who is dealing with issues related to fear and sadness, I will then consider how the clients problems could be caused by the sociocultural climate within which they are surrounded. The case study will be focusing upon issues such as culture, gender, race and sexuality, looking at the usefulness of recognising the importance of sociocultural issues when considering an individuals distress, with culture, sexuality and race being the main focus of the study. I will be using a person-centred approach as my counselling technique, as this is considered to be a more open-minded approach, relating sociocultural issues to the client.

Approaches

or to even experience it without power differences between counsellor and client being exacerbated in ways that would be extremely unhelpful ?

Ours is a modern world and we are fully aware of many of the sociocultural aspects which accompany it, we are all individuals, but when attempting to treat clients as nothing but, the experience of being an individual can become lost. Some more traditional approaches to therapy have been criticised by multicultural and LGBT affirmative therapists for their stances – It is said that they regularly fail to see how important culture, gender and sexuality are. (Barker, M. 2010 pg. 212)

An industry, psychotherapy and counselling are evolving, moving with the times, keeping everything relevant for all clients, in order that therapists are not seen as “useless” However many available counsellors still subscribe to the original ideals, meaning that multicultural and LGBT style therapists are not so readily available and these clients feel a though their needs are not being

The humanistic approaches to counselling draw upon the values and ideas of ‘humanistic psychology’ also known as the ‘third force’ in psychology because it emerged as a reaction against the mechanistic, reductionist and determinist theories of the two prevailing psychologies in the mid-twentieth century, behaviourism and psychoanalysis (Barker, M. 2010 pg.103)

While working with Bethan I would be thoughtful and kind, hoping she would see my willingness to grow and learn with her as well as to help relieve herself of her distress. As Bethan came to me with multiple issues, her father, being mixed race and now being gay, I would encourage her to start at the point she feels is the most significant to her. Bethan makes a point of telling me that she has always felt unaccepted because she is mixed race, Rogers argues that humans have a basic need for approval (Barker, M.

2010 pg.109) Bethan feels neglected and isolated because she was denied this