Here are a few suggestions for furthering your knowledge on cultural humility. Cultural humility means understanding that you’re not an expert on someone else’s culture. Each person’s cultural identity is based on multiple factors including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, and social needs. Cultural humility means broadening your horizons to explore theories that might work better for clients who don’t share your cultural background.
The Importance of Cultural Humility in Mental Health Treatment
HealthCity is dedicated to sharing the most cutting-edge ideas for advancing health justice through inspiring stories, in-depth Q&As with equity pioneers, research news that could change the medical landscape, and more. It’s imperative to reckon with the complexity of these cultural terms and not shift to either-or binaries amid already problematic and polarized us-them dichotomies at the core of these challenges. A diverse workforce is essential, but it doesn’t stop there. Racism, sexism, ableism — all of these ‘isms and others — are embedded in the world at large and trickle down to national levels, state levels, institutions, and systems of care and how policies and procedures are established.
Hernández-Wolfe research with Latino populations suggests that striving for cultural equity and dialogue in mental health is also paramount, suggesting “…a co-existence instead of binaries and oppositions where a view must dominate the other”. In particular, Yeager and Bauer-Wu provide an additional dimension of Mindfulness to further enhance awareness of self and others, in relation to cultural humility in the research context. This concept promotes greater self-reflection in therapeutic practice with regards to issues of race and power differences, and is considered integral to practice, defying the notion of culturally competent practice 42,44,45,46,47,48,49,50. In the mental health arena, striving towards the absence of cultural bias and any form of racism aids “cultural safety”, a metaphor originating from the New Zealand Maori context and Indigenous populations, but also of some relevance to the CALD cohort.
- Whilst this letter has proposed promoting cultural humility in the medical school system, it also seeks to highlight that further evidence needs to be collected in order to assess the strength of the impact of cultural humility on patient encounters and the long-term effects on a student’s professionalism in a culturally diverse patient setting.
- A growing movement in mental health acknowledges the limitations of this approach.
- The findings demonstrated that consumer-providers significantly reduced self-stigma among service users, while also improving self-esteem and feelings of empowerment.
- This was followed by reviewing themes (step 4) and incorporating additional relevant responses, reflecting subthemes across behavioral, normative, and control beliefs.
- When asked what is important for aspiring counselors to know about cultural competence, Dr. Hargons shared that,
- All people experience these—even those who strive to maintain a multicultural orientation and openness to diversity.
Together, these findings would seem to indicate that well-designed, targeted trainings and resources to promote cultural humility would be well received by mental health providers, if allotted time and resources by organizations. Still, findings on beliefs and motivation reflected providers’ interest and willingness to engage clients with cultural humility, as well as desire for accountability and training in these approaches. Similar barriers to cultural humility training and resources were echoed in control beliefs, where lack of support from mental health systems were compounded with personal limitations and shortcomings of existing training materials. Furthermore, participants described that ongoing consultation after trainings would be a facilitator, as well as being able to consult, discuss, and receive feedback from colleagues and receiving mentorship and “relational supports” that “holds me accountable.” Participants also expressed that cultural humility practice was easier when providers can find practical ways to integrate it into their existing clinical tasks and organizational trainings. In contrast, other participants said that their practices would be supportive, but provided fewer resources and less active guidance, “missing that extra step of initiating support.” Some agencies were perceived to focus on certification (e.g., training in manualized treatments) and regarding cultural humility, “there’s more they could do to be supportive of the practitioners at my private practice” (Ashley). Exploring cultural identity also helped clients to process stigma and shame around mental health challenges, such as “an awareness of ‘not measuring up or not being faithful to’ perhaps something that was an expectation or a set bar within the family system” (Mike).
Mindfulness as a tool to enhance awareness and insight
Before you can cultivate an impression of cultural humility, you have to do the work, starting with a commitment that will last throughout your career. Developing cultural humility can help you be open and curious about your clients and cultural groups they belong to. It helps you understand that you can never be truly ‚culturally competent’ when it comes to knowing someone else’s experiences because of the complex nature of personal identities.2 By embracing cultural humility, therapists can create spaces where clients feel truly seen, heard, and understood. In a world that often seems divided, cultural humility offers a path towards genuine understanding and connection.
A systematized method was adopted utilizing key search terms—cultural humility, mental health, race, social work, and education. What is known about cultural humility and related concepts in the literature regarding mental health service provision and training? There is a growing body of Australian literature focusing on enhancing culturally competent care and addressing access and equity issues in the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Adopting the notion of cultural humility endorses self-reflection as a critical tool towards enhancing racial literacy and challenging the barriers that act to maintain a divide between service providers and those from culturally diverse backgrounds. A scoping review is well-positioned in contributing towards https://www.suffolkcountyny.gov/Departments/Health-Services/Cancer-Prevention-and-Health-Promotion-Coalition/LGBTQ-Health/Mental-Health the knowledge required in enhancing mental health service provision to better address the disparities and inequities impacting on culturally diverse populations on both individual and organizational levels.