What Does it Mean to be a Culturally Competent Counselor?
More people are imprisoned in the United States than in any other country in the world; and people of color constitute a disproportionate part (60%) of the incarcerated.
The Sentencing Project has further broken down the chances of being imprisoned by race, and the numbers are eye opening:
- African-American men have a 1:3 chance of being imprisoned
- Spanish-speaking men have a 1:6 chance of being imprisoned
- European descendants have a 1:17 chance of being imprisoned
These disproportionate incarcerations are linked to differential treatment by the criminal justice system, lack of access to adequate counsel, and racial profiling.
As clinicians, we are often called upon to support and treat people during their incarceration, release, and parole. We also support their family members during this time. Understanding how social injustice, like racism, poverty and mental illness, contributes to incarceration is essential to effective clinical care. This awareness allows us to speak up when we see the mental health system perpetuate myths that oppress people; for example, treating substance abuse or incarceration due to drug use as an “illness” rather than symptoms of a far greater problem such as trauma, intergenerational trauma and social injustice.
There are many factors that can contribute to our failure to engage social injustice such as: lack of awareness, “white fragility” and denial, compassion fatigue and a sense of helplessness. We become inured to the ongoing effects of racism and oppression in peoples lives. This also occurs if we do not allow ourselves to experience the daily direct effects.
But as clinicians, we are confronted with the effects of oppression in the lives of our clients every day. Personal and social oppression affect physical and mental well-being.
What do we need to know about that to improve our work with clients? How do we deepen our understanding of our own internalized oppression?
There are so many levels at which this is important, and yet one that directly affects our clients is the concept of allostatic load. Allostatic load is defined as the “wear and tear” effect of chronic stress from daily life on the body and mind. Racism, bigotry and poverty all contribute to allostatic load, and this load accumulates during a lifetime leading to mental and chronic physical illness; especially illness that is autonomically mediated like cardiovascular disease and diabetes. It is believed that to be due to the effects of racism in the U.S., African-Americans have higher early mortality compared to non-Hispanic whites.
In today’s culture of social injustice, we are no longer just clinicians: we are social justice advocates. We take on this role every time we are asked to treat someone who is incarcerated, addicted, or has multiple physical illness co-occurring with PTSD. And it doesn’t stop there.
Our work goes beyond the daily routine of our office--our mandate is to advocate and act. To be successful clinicians, our work in multicultural competency must incorporate anti oppression. To do this, we incorporate understanding about the structural racism at work in our practices, our agencies, jails and the society at large.
Further learning about “Race” in America
Read: Multicultural Counseling Workbook: Exercises, Worksheets & Games to Build Rapport with Diverse Clients by Leslie Korn
Watch: Advance Your Cultural Competency in the Clinical Setting: DSM-5® Guidelines, Ethical Standards and Multicultural Awareness, a CE seminar with Leslie Korn.
Listen: When Ancestry Search Led To Escaped Slave: 'All I Could Do Was Weep', an interview with author Regina Mason.
View: The Dhamma Brothers story of the introduction of Vipassana meditation into a maximum-security prison in Alabama.
Leslie Korn, Ph.D., MPH, LMHC, has over 35 years of experience in cross cultural counseling, research, and traditional healing practices. For over 10 years, Dr. Korn was the president of a multicultural consulting firm to design and implement multilingual and multi-ethnic mental health and wellness programs to reduce chemical dependency in urban Boston and rural Massachusetts. She lived and worked in the jungle of Mexico for over 20 years where she directed a public health clinic working alongside traditional healers. She has contributed to the design of cultural revitalization programs for mental health in tribal communities in the Pacific Northwest and Canada and has provided over 40,000 hours of private practice and agency-based clinical treatment to diverse individuals, families and communities.
Dr. Korn has a dual doctorate in Behavioral Medicine and Traditional (indigenous) Medicine and a Masters of Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Korn also earned a Masters in cross-cultural health psychology from Lesley University. She was a clinical fellow in psychology and religion at Harvard Medical School. An approved clinical supervisor, licensed mental health counselor, Fulbright scholar and NIH-funded scientist, Dr. Korn is the author of Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health: A Complete Guide to the Food-Mood Connection (Norton, 2016), Rhythms of Recovery: Trauma, Nature and the Body (Routledge, 2012) and Preventing and Treating Diabetes Naturally, The Native Way (Daykeeper Press, 2010). Dr. Korn is core faculty and fieldwork supervisor in mental health counseling at Capella University and maintains bilingual clinical consulting practice in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Leslie Korn, PhD, MPH, LMHC, ACS, FNTP, BCTMB, is a renowned integrative medicine clinician and educator specializing in the use of nutritional, herbal and culinary medicine for the treatment of trauma and emotional and chronic physical illness. She is known for her dynamism and humor providing clients effective alternatives to psychotropics. She completed her graduate education in the department of psychiatry and public health at Harvard Medical School and her life training in the jungle of Mexico where she lived and worked alongside local healers for over 25 years. She directed a naturopathic medicine and training clinic facilitating health, culinary and fitness retreats. She is licensed and certified in nutritional therapy, mental health counseling, and bodywork (Polarity and Cranial Sacral and medical massage therapies) and is an approved clinical supervisor. She introduced somatic therapies for complex trauma patients in outpatient psychiatry at Harvard Medical school in 1985 and served Acupuncture and faculty at National College of Naturopathic Medicine.
She is the author of the seminal book on the body and complex trauma: Rhythms of Recovery: Integrative Medicine for PTSD and Complex Trauma, 2nd Edition (Routledge, 2012, 2023); The Brainbow Blueprint: A Clinical Guide to Integrative Medicine and Nutrition for Mental Well Being (PESI, 2023), Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health (W.W. Norton, 2016), Eat Right Feel Right: Over 80 Recipes and Tips to Improve Mood, Sleep, Attention & Focus (PESI, 2017); Multicultural Counseling Workbook: Exercises, Worksheets & Games to Build Rapport with Diverse Clients (PESI, 2015); The Good Mood Kitchen (W.W. Norton, 2017); and Natural Woman: Herbal Remedies for Radiant Health at Every Age and Stage of Life (Shambhala, 2019). She was a founder of the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork, a Fullbright scholar in Herbal Medicine and an NIH-funded scientist, in mind/body medicine. She is an approved clinical supervisor and is the research director at the Center for World Indigenous Studies where she designs culinary and herbal medicine programs with tribal communities engaged in developing integrative medicine programs.
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Leslie Korn maintains a private practice. She receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. Dr. Korn receives royalties as a published author. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Leslie Korn is a member of the Nutritional Therapy Association and Integrative Medicine for the Underserved.
