Utilizing Acceptance Commitment Therapy to enhance multicultural counseling competency

Abstract

Throughout its development and into current practice, the field of psychology has demonstrated a number of biased, oppressive, and ethnocentric practices. In response, numerous professionals have taken it upon themselves to advocate for the amelioration of cultural bias. As a result of their efforts, in 1996, the APA issued guidelines with the intention of intertwining ethical practice with cultural knowledge and awareness. With these guidelines in place the APA positioned multicultural counseling competency (MCC) as an integral component of current professional psychology programs. The effort to incorporate MCC into graduate coursework has been met with resistance from faculty and students. Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) has demonstrated effectiveness at lowering resistance and experiential avoidant behavior. This dissertation proposes an ACT consistent protocol, designed for psychology graduate students, and with the aim of decreasing avoidance toward MCC based coursework while increasing awareness of cultural variables that can arise during therapy.