Teaching Multicultural Counseling with Mindfulness: a Contemplative Pedagogy Approach
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Teaching Multicultural Counseling with Mindfulness: a Contemplative Pedagogy Approach Alexander J. Hilert 1
& Camila Tirado
2
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract Training in multiculturalism and social justice is pivotal to the growth and development of future counselors. Nonetheless, counselor educators tasked with teaching courses on multiculturalism and social justice must contend with several challenges due to the emotionally charged nature of the course content. In recent years, contemplative pedagogy, which entails the use of mindfulness-based practices in higher education, has emerged as a potential tool for promoting emotional balance and multicultural competence in students. This article reviews the extant literature on contemplative pedagogy and provides suggestions for utilizing mindfulness to promote the development of multicultural counseling competence amongst counseling students. Keywords Multicultural counseling . Counselor training . Mindfulness . Pedagogy
Introduction In recent years, the counseling profession has embraced multiculturalism and social justice as core values (American Counseling Association [ACA] 2014). Scholars have developed specific multicultural counseling competencies (MCC; Sue et al. 1992) and multicultural and social justice counseling competencies (MSJCC; Ratts et al. 2015) to ensure counselors possess the necessary awareness, knowledge, and skills to serve diverse populations. Furthermore, researchers have demonstrated that counselor multicultural competence plays a large role in working alliance, client satisfaction, session depth, and treatment outcomes in counseling (Tao et al. 2015).
* Alexander J. Hilert [email protected]
1
School Psychology and Counselor Education, College of William and Mary, 301 Monticello Avenue, Williamsburg, VA 23185, USA
2
Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, 806 West Franklin Street, Box 842018, Richmond, VA 23284-2018, USA
International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling
Counselor educators (CEs) have also written extensively on the topic of multicultural counseling pedagogy (Yoon et al. 2014). Scholars have revealed that CEs face a number of challenges in the teaching of multicultural counseling courses due to complex classroom dynamics, differing levels of student development, and the emotionally charged nature of the course content (Chan et al. 2018; Yoon et al. 2014). Moreover, researchers have observed that counselors-in-training (CITs) commonly report intense emotions and internal conflict in multicultural counseling classes (Atkins et al. 2017; Pieterse et al. 2016). While intense emotions and conflict may serve an important role in the process of developing cultural competence (Helms 1992), they may also trigger resistance, which hinders personal and professional growth (Yoon et al. 2014). In recent years, scholars have developed contemplative pedagogy, which entails the use of mindfulness and compassion-based practices, as a potential tool for tr
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