Metacognition and Multicultural Competence

     The article provided a lot of solid insight into the process of multicultural counseling. The takeaway message I was left with was the fact that many counselors experience the “over confidence effect.” This relates to the fact that many counselors overestimate their ability to utilize effective counseling techniques and are just as prone to making mistakes as is a lay person. The fact alone that minorities generally perceive that there are fewer opportunities available to them as well as more barriers to face indicates that any type of career counseling is not going to be a straight forward interaction. Despite this fact, many counselors arrive at “premature solutions” and perhaps do not fully address the needs of the client. When the authors mentioned the strategy of having the counselors examine their own personal values before engaging in a multicultural counseling session, I was reminded of my Therapeutic Crisis Intervention training I received while working as a TSS for Philhaven. One of the tenets of that intervention strategy involved the TSS examining their own internal state before responding to a client. Questions such as “how am I feeling?” and “how can I resolve this professionally?” were suggested as ways of focusing on your own mental health before responding to a potentially violent or escalating situation. It seems like this method of looking inward before making a judgment or a decision regarding a client is an important strategy for any person working in the field of mental health or counseling.

     One question I have in regards to multicultural career counseling is why is there limited available data for ethnic minorities? I understand that historically, white subjects were used because the researchers were predominantly white, but shouldn’t we have some more data by this point? Are there not a lot of minority career counselors? What about looking at data from other countries? I know America prides itself on its academics with our universities and history of scientific research, but it’s the 21^st century and clearly there are educated people all over the world so it seems odd that there isn’t more data available to us at this time. I think the methods provided in this article are very beneficial and could conceivably vastly improve the quality of counseling given to minorities, but I would still like to see some more empirical data instead of operating through a method that, despite being logical, does not have a lot of reliable data to back it up.

Byars-Winston, A. M., & Fouad, N. A. (2006). Metacognition and multicultural competence: Expanding the culturally appropriate career counseling model. Career Development Quarterly, 54(3), 187-201.