Counselor in Training, Exploring Multicultural Development

Personal Background

My family heritage is a mixture of Hungarian, English, and German. I was raised by a white, middle-class, single income, conservative, homeschool family with four siblings. My parents adhered to pretty typical male and female gender roles within the household. Meaning, my father tended to do more of the outdoor work and my mother tended to focus more on the indoor maintenance and household care. My father was the predominant breadwinner of the family and he was bi-vocational, meaning he worked full-time for the school system as an elementary guidance counselor and a part-time church planter for the southern Baptist association. All this being said, ever since childhood, there was a very strong religious emphasis on my day-to-day living. Being raised by practicing Christian parents, who, also, were involved in church- planting, or new church start-ups, meant actively reading the Bible daily and serving on Sundays for morning and evening services. In addition to Sunday services, participation in other Bible studies and meetings in the middle of the week were also expected as well. Being homeschooled from kindergarten through twelfth grade, included a school curriculum that had a strong Biblical emphasis.

Similarities and Differences Between My Family of Origin and Other Cultures

I did get to participate in some sports and music classes through a local public high school during my high school years. I think that in high school is when I began to truly realize how different my life was compared to many other adolescents my age. Being on a cross country team and track team, through the public high school, helped me see what other teenagers were like. I realized that many of them had single parent homes, that they had different racial backgrounds, and that they had different moral codes of conduct that they were comfortable operating in. For example, I remember the stark difference of the use of language and sexual innuendos coming from the public high schoolers, versus my experience with other homeschoolers being encouraged to not use that form of language or joking. As a child and teenager, I would say that overall, I was highly sheltered, especially from having a lot of exposure to people of differing religious backgrounds. As a child, I don’t remember ever being around anyone who possessed different religious thinking, such as Muslims, Hindus, agnostics, atheists or traditional Judaism.

In middle school, I remember going on a mission trip to help host vacation Bible school in Mexico at three different churches. This was the first time that I had ever traveled outside of the U.S. In this short, week-long experience, I saw a sharp socioeconomic contrast, as some of the people in Mexico lived in very nice homes, but then right next door to the very nice homes, there were shacks in comparison. In the states, I had seen neighborhoods that were more similar in socioeconomic levels.

When I was in my first year of college, I had the pleasure of experiencing an internship in Chicago, Illinois. During the internship, I was able to travel to Yangon, Myanmar and New Delhi, India. During this cultural immersive experience overseas, I was able to interact with dozens of children from these two countries. The children in India were from about twenty different missionary families that were based from various parts of the entire country of India. It was an amazing experience to eat lots of Indian food, play the children’s games that they enjoyed and witness the Indian parents in how they interacted and communicated with the group of Americans that I was with. One of the conflicts that I discovered between Indian culture and American culture was how Americans value starting a meeting at the agreed upon time, whereas the Indian families would not start a meeting until everyone was present, even if the meeting started well after the originally agreed upon time. In essence, it became clear that Indian culture valued inclusion and they were less concerned about time constraints, whereas the Americans valued time constraints and were less concerned about everyone being there if they were late to the meeting. The differences in the various cultures that I have experienced cause me to be interested and intrigued. I believe that there are such rich strengths in every culture and I strive to approach every culture with a spirit of humility and grace.

Importance of Racial/Cultural Identity Development

As an adult, working in the academic advising department is when I have experienced most of my interactions with people of different ethnicities and backgrounds. My personality is friendly, outgoing, curious, compassionate, and humble. Most of my experiences have been tremendously positive with interacting with people from all around the world. Working in the academic advising department at a state college in central Florida has allowed me to meet people from all around all around the world. I have helped conduct academic advising and career counseling for students from Russia, Ukraine, India, several African countries, South American countries, just to name a few.

I do remember one especially thought-provoking experience, while working with a middle-aged single black woman who was working on earning a degree in social and human services. I do not remember entirely what triggered the conversation, but I remember her telling me that I was privileged. I don’t remember exactly how I rechanneled the conversation to be focused on her academic advising pathway and needs, but it definitely got me thinking about the concept of privilege and what that truly meant from her perspective of me. “Privilege, like oppression, is complex and multidimensional. Privilege manifests itself differently based on multiple identities, personal experiences, desire for status, and level of self-awareness” (Hays, 2022). Interestingly enough, I have become great friends with this student and I have continued to learn a lot from her life and experiences, which I value tremendously.

Being a white, thirty-one-year-old male, in the role of an academic advising setting, proves to have some interesting challenges. One of the challenges that I face daily is that many of the students are much older than I am, and to make matters more interesting, I have an extremely youthful appearance and look younger than I am. I remember one white father of a college student who came in and jokingly stated, “you look too young to know anything.” In the counseling profession, I imagine that I would continue to experience some of these same exact challenges in having to work a little bit extra hard to establish trust with the clients that I serve who could also be much older than I am. Now, looking back, I realize that I experienced what is known as a form of ageism, because it was pursued that I did not have enough knowledge based on my young appearance. “Ageism is defined as the assumption that chronological age is the main determinant of human characteristics and that one age is better than another” (Hays, 2022).

My personality trait of curiosity proves to be useful when interacting with people. The curiosity drives me, with the willingness to take the extra time to ask questions, in order to learn about each person’s value system and their cultural background, as long as they are willing to share with me that is. Also, I possess a very individualistic approach when interacting with people.

I realize that every client that I would potentially be counseling will come from a highly different background. I consider my childhood experience to be very atypical compared to what most children experience. For example, statistics and research regarding single-parent-black families, indicates the following, “Black single-parent-led households statistically have less opportunity to create enrichment environments for their children” (McFarlane, 2025). As a counselor, understanding that many black or African decent clients may have experienced as many advantages academically. Because I’ve worked in higher education for over a decade, I feel that I have a mature understanding of this concept. However, the counseling profession would provide a more in-depth deep dive into the more personal challenges and disadvantages that these clients with this background have encountered.

Another cultural difference, layered in with non-traditional families, of clients that I may potentially experience would be counseling LGBTQ parents or their children. “Researchers and providers in family planning settings must be aware of the continued shifts in family sociodemographic characteristics over time such as poverty status and the role of identity in the context of parenthood, particularly for bisexual parents” (Simon 2025). I grew up in a family with conservative, heterosexual, parents who experienced a stable marital relationship. I understand that the perspective of children growing up with same-sex parents would likely have some different personal experiences. Children with alternative families would likely have encountered discrimination and instability outside of my personal experience.

Another cultural minority group that I would need to familiarize myself with, would be the native American indigenous people groups. “All counselors work in proximity to NAI communities, although they remain primarily unknowledgeable of their existence and under-prepared to meet their needs” (Leigh-Osroosh, 2024). Native American communities have strong cultural practices and low acculturation tendencies to that of the broader society. It is a shame to think about the lack of outreach and apparent effort that the counseling profession has put into the NAI communities, however, with the appropriate social justice efforts in the future, hopefully this will change in the future!

Conducting Social Justice and Client Advocacy for Others

At first, social justice and advocacy seems a bit daunting for emerging counselors such as myself. “Social justice advocacy cannot be solely explained by actual actions without consideration of counselors’ self-perception regarding their social justice attitudes and actions, as these perceptions can contribute to consistency in their future actions” (Um, 2023). I believe that the first step of social justice is to learn about the minority groups and hear from their experiences and narratives in order to better understand where their needs truly rest. Also, geographically the minority groups may have different experiences as well that I would need to be mindful of when working toward client advocacy and conducting social justice. For example, "Kimberly Gil knows what it’s like to struggle with mental health and not have a place to turn for support. Gil, a 16-year-old sophomore at the High School for Social Justice in Bushwick, Brooklyn, immigrated to the U.S. as a kid and struggled to acclimate. She often felt like she couldn’t talk to her family about what she was going through. It’s a familiar story among her classmates, Gil said. ‘Many of our students have lost a loved one. They’ve gone through sexual harassment, sexual assault, depression, self-harm,” said Gil. But when it comes to bringing up those topics with their families, many teens are concerned “they won’t believe me, or they won’t be there for me.’ That sense of isolation is what drove Gil and seven classmates to come up with a new approach to supporting student mental health: creating a space in school where kids can share what they’re going through with fellow teenagers” (Elsen-Rooney, 2024). This is a great example of how an immigrant saw a need and then took bold action to help other teenagers similar to her. In the counseling profession, I feel that compassion is one of the most important core values to have because it helps drive the force to help other people, especially minority groups who sometimes feel that they are disadvantaged. “Counselors are trained to understand the importance of addressing and preventing trauma symptomology, as well as the impact traumatic events can have on the well-being of individuals and communities” (Pignato 2022).

In conclusion, I believe within the counseling profession, the seeds of justice are planted, when I would potentially take the time to listen to the narratives of minority groups. I understand that I may experience privileges and blindness to some of the areas of my life. It is important for me to remember all that I have, and how my background and heritage are important to consider. It is also important to put myself in the shoes of all other people who have different ethnic backgrounds in order to strive to see the world outside of my own lense. I want to remain approachable and quick to listen to how others perceive me and my approach to fighting for social justice and client advocacy in the counseling profession. “Counselors have the responsibility to advocate for practices and policies that reduce inequity and increase access to mental health care for all” (Social Justice).

References

Elsen-Rooney, M. (2024). Chalkbeat: Aspen Ideas fest for teens: Brooklyn students tackle mental health, immigration, rats. Newstex.

Hays, D., & Erford, B. (2022). Developing multicultural counseling competence: A systems approach (4th ed.). Pearson.

Leigh-Osroosh, K. T., & Copeland, C. (2024). Distributive Justice for Native American Indigenous Peoples within Counseling. Counseling and Values., 69(1), 21–46. https://doi.org/10.1163/2161007x-bja10010

McFarlane, J. S. (2025). Black Single Heads of Households Levels of Education and Its Effect on Their Children’s Pursuit of Higher Learning (Order No. 32038448). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (3201334689). https://go.openathens.net/redirector/liberty.edu url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/black-single-heads-households-levels-education/docview/ 3201334689/se-2

Pignato, L. (2022, May). Counselors as Social Justice Advocates. Counseling.education.wm.edu. https://counseling.education.wm.edu/blog/counselors-as-social-justice-advocates

Simon, K. A., Meslay, G., Farr, R. H., & Russell, S. T. (2025). Demographic Characteristics and Parenthood Across Three Cohorts of Sexual Minority Adults. Family Process., 64(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.70012

Social Justice. (n.d.). Www.counseling.org. https://www.counseling.org/resources/topics/cultural-identities/social-justice

Um, B., & Wood, S. M. (2023). The influence of professional identity and social justice training on counseling trainees’ social justice advocacy. Journal of Counselor Leadership and Advocacy, 11(1), 46–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/2326716X.2023.2292229