CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES AND CULTURAL AWARENESS
Assignment Context
In your work as a marriage and family therapist, it is important to be aware of how identified culture, personal beliefs, and values can impact your client’s view on their presenting issues and your ability to be an effective therapist. In this assignment, you will apply a therapeutic model to explore some of the contemporary issues that many couples face. You will also analyze how those issues might be perceived differently depending on one’s identified culture.
Assignment Instructions
Select one of the scenarios and therapeutic models below:
After an incident involving a gun at a local elementary school, a couple’s 10-year-old son is afraid to attend school. The couple disagrees on how to handle the situation.
A couple is having a very difficult time dealing with the husband’s employment status. The husband was recently suspended without pay for forwarding jokes to a female coworker that were deemed “insensitive” and “inappropriate” by management.
A couple is struggling with challenges as one partner’s mother is currently living with them for an undefined amount of time due to multiple chronic health issues.
After an incident involving cyber bullying and a suicide attempt of a minor attending the local school, a couple disagrees about their children’s usage of social media.
Therapeutic models:
Emotionally focused couple therapy (EFT).
The Gottman Approach.
Bowen family systems.
Structural couple therapy.
1. For this assignment:
Briefly explain your selected scenario and the therapeutic model you will use to approach the scenario.
Explain how the model you chose would help this couple explore their issues.
Describe the basic tenets and characteristics of the model as related to the selected scenario.
Explain the target of intervention and theory of change management for your selected theory.
What information is missing from the current scenarios?
What information would you need to uncover in order to develop an effective intervention strategy?
2.None of the above scenarios provide much context for the clients’ identified culture, personal beliefs, or values. Create 4–5 probing questions that are related to the selected couple’s identified culture, spiritual beliefs, personal beliefs, and values, as well as aligned to the selected model.
3.Consider your own culture and your reactions to the scenario you chose to explore.
Describe any core values or beliefs of your family of origin that shaped your personal identity.
Describe your own demographics including gender, age, religious/spiritual status, ethnicity/race, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation.
Identify the categories where you hold a cultural identity that is shared with the dominant culture. For example, are you heterosexual? If yes, then you share this identity with the dominant culture.
Provide an example of how your identified culture and values might impact your perspective on the selected scenario.
Because the scenarios did not provide any cultural context for the clients, you can be creative and provide those details for the characters in your selected scenario.
Then, using the literature, identify specific cultural considerations to be aware of when working with clients in that identified population.
Describe the basic tenets and characteristics of the selected therapy model.
Explain the target of intervention and theory of change management.
Describe how missing information related to the presenting problem could facilitate a more complete case conceptualization.
Create questions that probe a client’s identified culture, beliefs, or values.
Characterize identified culture through personal demographics, values, and beliefs.
Provide an example of how the therapist’s personal background can impact their perspective on the selected scenario.
Identify cultural considerations when working with clients.
