Counselor development in multicultural case conceptualization.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Case conceptualization is a critical component to being an effective counselor. This study examined the development of case conceptualization skills in counselor trainees. Two aspects were the foci: cognitive complexity and expertise. Ninety-one Masters and Doctoral student counselor trainees participated in this study. They were administered a survey that included a demographic questionnaire and three case scenarios for which they were asked to provide case conceptualizations and treatment recommendations. The cases varied in the degree to which cultural issues were a factor for the presenting client.
Case conceptualization ability was evaluated for cognitive complexity using three different scales, differentiation, multicultural differentiation, and integration. Differentiation was the number of different ideas that were presented by the trainee. Multicultural differentiation was the number of different ideas presented by the trainee that contained references to culture. Integration was the overall cohesiveness of the conceptualization, or how well the ideas related to one another. Expertise was measured by the degree to which trainees included content matching expert criterion.
Each of these variables was examined in relation to trainees' level of training. Repeated measure analyses of variance were used to explore the relationships between clinical training and differentiation, multicultural differentiation, integration and expert content. Multicultural differentiation was also examined in relation to multicultural training. Individual differences in these variables across client cases were also examined for significance in relation to clinical training. Lastly, multicultural differentiation, integration and expert content were examined for differences by two categories of race, White trainees and trainees of color.
Results indicated that trainees who completed more than one supervised clinical practicum scored significantly higher in differentiation and multicultural differentiation than trainees who completed less than one, and significantly higher in integration and expert content than trainees completing one or less. In addition, trainees who have completed more than two courses specifically focused on multicultural issues scored higher in multicultural differentiation in cases wherein culture was either explicit or implied in the presenting problem. No significant findings resulted in the examination of individual differences across cases. Lastly, the results of the analyses exploring the relationship between racial group and multicultural differentiation, integration and expert content were not significant.