Without the awareness and willingness to acknowledge how they have benefited from cultural racism, white counselors risk creating fractured alliances and distrust in the therapeutic process.
Tag: therapeutic alliance
A desire for change can sometimes cause counselors and clients to overlook the importance of building a sense of safety first.
Stigma and misunderstanding about clients with severe mental illnesses can prevent some counselors from taking the necessary steps to build a strong therapeutic relationship.
By remaining clinically objective, do counselors inadvertently sacrifice the client’s humanity?
If counselors assume the role of a “savior,” then they risk stripping clients of their empowerment and ability to make meaningful progress.
Faith can play an important role in a client’s healing process, but a lack of knowledge and training often makes counselors hesitant to incorporate it into the therapeutic session.
Counselors must strike a balance between maintaining young clients’ confidentiality and accommodating parents who want to be kept in the loop about their child’s progress in therapy.
A selfie can say a lot about a person, and when used clinically, it can prompt deeper discussions about self-image and foster the therapeutic alliance.
The childhood sexual abuse of Black men remains a taboo subject, but counselors can help clients break the silence and reclaim their own power.
Rather than labeling hesitant clients as “resistant,” counselors should check their assumptions, work to better understand the underlying reasons and barriers these clients face, and double down on unconditional positive regard.