Asking Instead of Assuming: Cultural Humility and the Adaptation of Counseling Approaches for Teresa
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Psychology Program, Aspen University
PSY530: Advanced Helping Skills
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Month Day, Year
Asking Instead of Assuming: Cultural Humility and the Adaptation of Counseling Approaches for Teresa
Every approach applied to Teresa in this course so far was developed and tested largely with clients unlike her. This paper considers how culture shapes her experience and her work in counseling, using established frameworks for multicultural competence and cultural humility, assesses her cultural identities without relying on stereotypes, examines the counselor's own position, and identifies where the earlier cognitive, motivational, and solution-focused work needed to be adapted.
Competence and Humility
Sue et al. (1992) proposed that culturally skilled counselors develop three areas: awareness of their own assumptions, values, and biases; understanding of the worldview of culturally different clients; and skill in developing appropriate intervention strategies and techniques. Later work added the idea of cultural humility. Hook et al. (2013) defined it as an interpersonal stance that is other-oriented rather than self-focused, marked by respect and a lack of superiority toward a client's cultural background and experience. Across four studies, they found that clients' perceptions of their therapist's cultural humility were positively associated with a stronger working alliance and with improvement in therapy, and that the link to improvement ran through the alliance. Competence describes what a counselor knows; humility describes how the counselor holds that knowledge in the room.
Assessing Teresa's Identities
Hays (2008) developed the ADDRESSING framework to help practitioners consider many dimensions of identity: age and generational influences, developmental or acquired disabilities, religion and spiritual orientation, ethnic and racial identity, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, indigenous heritage, national origin, and gender. Applied to Teresa, it prompts questions rather than conclusions. She is 52, part of a generation that often expected long careers with one employer. She is Mexican American, a U.S.-born daughter of parents who came from Jalisco. She describes herself as Catholic, attending Mass occasionally. Her socioeconomic position has shifted: she was a middle-class professional and now faces reduced income, which carries both material stress and a threat to status. As the oldest daughter who cared for her siblings after her father's death, her gender role and family position are woven together.
The framework's value is that it keeps the counselor from reducing Teresa to a single category. It would be easy to assume that she values family above all or that she would prefer to keep problems private. When asked, she said both were partly true, that she also resents how much her family relies on her, and that she chose counseling partly because it was separate from them.
The Counselor's Own Position
Awareness begins with the counselor. In this composite case, the counselor is a white woman in her late twenties, a first-generation college student who has never lost a job and does not share Teresa's religion or ethnic background. These differences can lead to blind spots: underestimating how deeply a career can be tied to family duty, or interpreting Teresa's reluctance to discuss her mother as avoidance rather than respect. The counselor addressed differences directly in the second session by saying, "We come from different places, and I may miss things that matter to you. I hope you'll tell me when I do." Teresa later said this made it easier to correct the counselor when she misunderstood.
Adapting the Earlier Approaches
Several adaptations followed. In cognitive work, her conviction that she matters only when she provides was not treated as a simple distortion, since providing for family reflects a value she holds and shares with her community; the goal became flexibility, recognizing that she can provide in ways other than income, such as caring for her grandchildren or mentoring former staff. In motivational interviewing, her reasons for change were drawn from her own values, including her wish to be present for her family, rather than from general health messages. In solution-focused work, her preferred future included family roles the counselor would not have predicted, such as calling her daughter just to talk. And the counselor offered to include a spiritual dimension if Teresa wished; she chose to talk about how her faith framed the layoff as something to endure rather than something she caused.
Beyond the Individual: Structural Factors
Cultural humility also means recognizing forces outside the client. Teresa's fear that employers will prefer younger applicants is not simply a cognitive distortion; age can affect hiring, and treating her concern as irrational would invalidate a real barrier. Her loss of income affects her family's finances and her standing in an extended family that has relied on her. A counselor attentive to these realities would validate them, help her separate what she can influence from what she cannot, and connect her with practical resources, such as a workforce center's program for experienced professionals or legal information if she suspects discrimination. Addressing the environment as well as the person is part of the skill component that Sue et al. (1992) described.
Monitoring the Relationship Across Difference
Since the alliance appears to carry much of the effect of cultural humility on outcome (Hook et al., 2013), the counselor will continue to ask at the end of sessions whether anything felt off or missed. The counselor will also seek supervision when a reaction to Teresa seems strong or surprising, since those moments often signal an assumption at work.
Involving Family, With Consent
Teresa's family is both a source of support and a source of pressure. The counselor asked whether she wanted anyone involved in the work and accepted her answer that, for now, she did not. She agreed that her husband could join one later session to discuss how the household would manage during the job search. Decisions about family involvement belong to the client, and a counselor who assumed that a Mexican American client would want family present, or would not, would be substituting a generalization for her choice.
Conclusion
Teresa's culture is not a label to be applied but a set of identities to be understood through her own account. Frameworks for multicultural competence and the ADDRESSING model guide the questions; cultural humility shapes how the counselor asks them. Research links clients' sense of their counselor's humility to a stronger alliance and better progress, and for Teresa, adapting each approach to her values made the work more her own.
References
Hays, P. A. (2008). Addressing cultural complexities in practice: Assessment, diagnosis, and therapy (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association.
Hook, J. N., Davis, D. E., Owen, J., Worthington, E. L., & Utsey, S. O. (2013). Cultural humility: Measuring openness to culturally diverse clients. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 60(3), 353-366. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032595
Sue, D. W., Arredondo, P., & McDavis, R. J. (1992). Multicultural counseling competencies and standards: A call to the profession. Journal of Counseling & Development, 70(4), 477-486. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1992.tb01642.x
How this PSY 530 Module 7 example is structured
Aspen's catalog describes PSY530 as assessing theories' implementation in real-world scenarios and identifying best practices for client outcomes. Aspen does not publish module deliverables, so check your classroom for the exact prompt. This example explains two frameworks with evidence, applies a named assessment model, examines the counselor's position and shows specific adaptations of earlier approaches.
PSY530 Module 7 questions, answered
What does PSY530 Module 7 usually ask for?
Work late in PSY530 often asks how culture and diversity affect the application of counseling theories and how to adapt practice accordingly. Aspen does not publish module deliverables, so your classroom's instructions govern.
What is cultural humility in counseling?
An other-oriented stance marked by respect and a lack of superiority toward a client's cultural background, which research has linked to stronger alliances and better client improvement.
What is the ADDRESSING framework?
A model by Pamela Hays for considering age, disability, religion, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, indigenous heritage, national origin and gender in understanding a client.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Aspen University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.