Multicultural Counseling Lab

Catalog description

This lab intensive is in conjunction with the course Multicultural Counseling and the Therapeutic Relationship. This course utilizes experiential practice and process techniques including discussion, guided practice, self-inquiry and expressive arts processes. Students will explore the foundational tenets of the therapeutic encounter learning the knowledge and skills required to communicate therapeutically with clients of diverse backgrounds through an expressive arts lens. The class emphasizes a relational-cultural, constructionist approach to socio-culturally attuned therapeutic communication. This class seeks to expand students' understanding of how varied social locations such as ability, class, gender, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation inform effective mental health care. The impact of power, privilege, and oppression on mental health and the therapeutic process will be addressed as well as the counselor's role in eliminating biases, prejudices, and processes of intentional and unintentional oppression and discrimination in their practice. RESTRICTED TO EXPRESSIVE ARTS THERAPY STUDENTS