Client’s Unique Cultural Identity

            Halley is a 23-year-old female living in Kissimmee, Florida. Halley is a single mother raising a daughter, Moonee. Halley had Moonee at 17 and recently Moonee was removed from her custody by family services. In Florida, Halley is living in poverty. She stays in the Magic Castle Inn and Suites and pays rent week to week. The Magic Castle Inn and Suites is a high-crime environment frequented by drug dealers/users, sexual predators, and other dangerous people/activities.

           Halley was formerly working as an exotic dancer but was fired when she told her boss she was unwilling to perform sexual acts upon request. Now, Halley frequently struggles to make ends meet and has been partaking in various hustles and below-board side gigs to pay weekly rent. Examples include her selling black-market perfume, reselling stolen goods, and, eventually, bringing men back to her hotel room to provide sex in exchange for money. Additionally, being in poverty means that Halley is experiencing a lack of access to available resources. She and her daughter are experiencing financial hardship, housing instability, and food insecurity.

            Despite experiencing the oppression and disadvantage of being in poverty as a young single mother, Halley does experience privilege as a white person in the United States. It can be difficult to see privilege in Halley’s life because of the vast grip poverty has on her, but upon reflection, it is clear that she is given seemingly endless chances despite consistently making poor decisions.

Impact of Client’s Unique Cultural Identity

            As previously mentioned, Halley’s primary cultural influence is her low socioeconomic status. This affects her life in a wide variety of ways. According to Ruby Payne (2013), this cultural factor affects her personality, the way she spends her time, her family structure, and her perception of the world around her. Halley perceives her personality as being centered around humor and entertainment. The humor that she does demonstrate often has strong sexual themes (Payne, 2013). Additionally, the language Halley uses is in a very casual register (Payne, 2013). Halley regularly uses profanity and foul language which is typical of her cultural identity. She also places social emphasis on people she likes (Payne, 2013). Within the past year, Halley and her friend Ashley got into a significant argument over Halley’s parenting. This argument hurt Halley and caused her to ostracize and even get in a physical fight with Ashley. This is very much reflective of her low socioeconomic status impacting the way she views her relationships (Payne, 2013). Though Halley has no love interest at the moment, her love for Ashley is demonstrated to be conditional based on her no longer liking Ashley.

             Beyond relationships and her personality, Halley’s socioeconomic status also impacts her place in the world. Her worldview is fixated on the here and now, her local setting (Payne, 2013). There is no planning or making decisions with the long term in mind. This is also exemplified in the way she spends her time. Every decision Halley makes is based on feelings or survival. Rather than utilizing job placement services to obtain consistent employment, Halley sells black-market perfume to the nice hotel down the road. When that comes to an end, Halley resorts to prostitution. The forces driving Halley are rooted in survival (Payne, 2013). The survival aspect does extend into her relationship with her daughter. Halley works very hard to ensure Moonee is not worried about her living conditions. Unfortunately, as common to those with low socioeconomic status, their family structure is matriarchal with Halley as a single mother (Payne, 2013). This means Halley is on her own in caring for Moonee and is unable to adequately care for or shield her from the realities of their living conditions.

Counseling Competencies

             Regarding multicultural counseling competencies, there are 3 relevant areas where my client and I could work. Counselor self-awareness, client worldview, and counseling and advocacy interventions are all significant to keep in mind in our counseling relationship (Ratts et al., 2016). Pertaining to my self-awareness as a counselor, I need to be aware of myself as a cultural being. I am a white woman, like my client, but our differing socioeconomic status affects this common ground. I am currently middle class financially and I was raised in a family that is also the middle class. As Ruby Payne (2013) illustrates, this difference in economic status alters our values, beliefs, and biases. Additionally, my economic status provides me with definite privilege with increased opportunities, availability of resources, and access to assistance.

            Keeping my self-awareness in mind, it is also important that I am aware of my client’s worldview. Poverty changes so much about how an individual sees their surroundings. As previously mentioned, everything from humor to family structure is impacted. To be multiculturally competent, I should actively seek out opportunities to learn more about Halley’s worldview (Duan & Brown, 2016). Halley will likely be able to pick up on our differences and have a resulting bitterness or mistrust. In light of her child being removed from her care, Halley will be very closed off and will be heavily immersed in survival mode. This will cause much resistance in our therapeutic relationship. It will be of the utmost importance that I am sensitive to this to demonstrate to Halley that my number one goal is to help her find congruence within herself and regain custody of her daughter (Duan & Brown, 2016).

              Finally, counseling and advocacy interventions are significant counseling competencies relevant to my work with Halley. This is the most significant because of the specific call to action (Ratts et al., 2016). My client experiences a significant need for assistance in accessing resources. A great way for me to demonstrate advocacy with my client is to bring her resources rather than just mentioning them to her (Crumb et al., 2019). It would be a good idea for me to help her get involved with job placement services so she can regain stable employment and begin collecting government assistance again.

Impact of Privilege and Power

                As aforementioned, Halley and I differ in socioeconomic status. As white women, we do have a certain amount of white privilege, but the intersectionality of Halley’s financial insecurity, housing instability, and food insecurity are all cultural factors oppressing her. The dramatic difference in privilege between the two of us will impact our counseling relationship. Halley will likely assume that I do not understand her position and that I bring more judgment than assistance to the table. A way I can be responsive to our cultural differences in the language I select. Halley’s language is in a very casual register and I should do my best to match this. If I talk to her with high-level terminology and unnecessary sophistication, it is very unlikely she will be able to connect with anything I am saying. Additionally, empathetic listening is a way I could demonstrate my understanding of her current situation.

             Not only am I personally privileged by my socioeconomic status, but I also am in a position of perceived power as her counselor. Halley recently lost custody of her child, a situation that is leaving her powerless. She will likely see the power dynamic between us as unfair and intimidating. This will serve as an additional roadblock to our ability to connect. She will likely perceive me as being a looming force over her that is working to keep her separated from her child. She will also be likely to infer that I see her as beneath me and react defensively and be closed off to me. The best way I can combat this as a counselor is to show her that I respect her as an individual and provide her with unconditional positive regard.

Counseling Plan

             Within our counseling relationship, there is a lot that Halley and I could work on together. I bring an existential counseling lens to the relationship, so this means I will ultimately be working to help Halley realize her full potential and increase her awareness of the way she addresses her phenomenological experiences. With this in mind, Halley and I wanted to identify two measurable counseling goals for us to work on. Halley identified her goals as follows:

       1. To begin thinking about the long term and doing what it takes to find and maintain stable employment.

       2. To stop using drugs and decrease the use of alcohol and replace these activities with healthier coping mechanisms.

               The counseling Halley is receiving is a required step for her parental rights to be reinstated (Brennan, 2019). With this in mind, she will be receiving individual counseling for a minimum of 10 sessions of 50 minutes each with the opportunity to continue services. After the first 10 sessions, if she has met all requirements, Halley will be referred for family counseling with her daughter Moonee. The focus of our sessions will be flexible underneath the existential counseling lens. I firmly believe that the issues presented in Halley’s life do not exist in isolation, but rather are a result of a holistic problem (Bland, 2013). The primary focus of our sessions will be helping Halley identify and develop the potential within herself (Bland, 2013). Additionally, we will work on committing to the potential of the promising future before her despite the current constraints she has been dealing with (Bland, 2013). Strengths-based practices are the best focus for Halley’s sessions (Clark et al., 2020).

              Specific techniques that would be significant for counseling Halley would include reflective journaling, worksheets, and role play. Journaling will serve Halley the opportunity to explore and sort out some of her emotions regarding her current situation. Potential journaling prompts include “write a letter to your future self,” “list three negative emotions you felt this week and offer coping mechanisms for each,” or “write a current list of your most used coping mechanisms and identify if they are positive or negative.” In addition to journaling, worksheets that walk through specific issues will be provided in session to work through alongside the client. Roleplay for scenarios such as job interviews will also serve to help Halley build specific skills to regain control of her life and custody of Moonee. Finally, and potentially the most importantly, empathetic listening, reflections, and unconditional positive regard will have the greatest impact on Halley (Bland, 2013). The therapeutic relationship and the ability to talk and work through specific emotions and issues that arise in her day-to-day life will be the ultimate healing mechanism(Bland, 2013. This is where Halley and I will be able to work through her issues with freedom and responsibility.

Advocacy Plan

              There is ample opportunity for me to work as an advocate for Halley. This would include aiding in her job search, helping her find stable housing in a lower crime area, and advocating for the reuniting of her and her child. The most important part of advocacy is doing something. Halley suffers from a severe lack of access to resources. This means that to be a good advocate I must do more than just tell her what is available to her, I must provide her with practical ways to access these resources (Clark et al., 2020). A good first step would be helping her get a bus pass so she has access to transportation. Next, I would provide her with a list of establishments (accessible to her with her means of transportation) that are hiring and help her apply to those jobs (Clark et al., 2020). Once she secures employment, I would provide her with a list of housing options that are appropriate for her and Moonee.

                A final step in advocating for Halley would be involving myself in her custody battle. I could simply write a letter to the court detailing Halley’s progress and my professional opinion on her current ability to care for Moonee adequately. Aside from the specific counseling methodology put into place, advocacy will be the most important thing I do for Halley. This is an opportunity for me to use my privilege and power as a mental health professional to help Halley get a fair chance.

                                                         Citations

Bland, A. M. (2013). A vision of holistic counseling: Applying humanistic-existential principles in the therapeutic relationship. Journal of Holistic Psychology, 2, 277-282.

Brennan, B. L. (2019, December 23). Take the right steps to regain custody of your children. Brennan Family Law. Retrieved April 7, 2022, from https://www.brennanfamilylaw.com/blog/2018/06/take-the-right-steps-to-regain-custody-of-your-children/

Clark, M., Ausloos, C., Delaney, C., Waters, L., Salpietro, L., & Tippett, H. (2020). Best practices for counseling clients experiencing poverty: A grounded theory. Journal of Counseling & Development, 98(3), 283–294. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcad.12323

Crumb, L., Haskins, N., & Brown, S. (2019). Integrating social justice advocacy into mental health counseling in rural, impoverished American communities. The Professional Counselor, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.15241/lc.9.1.20

Duan, C., & Brown, C. (2016). Chapter 14 Developing Social Justice Counseling and Advocacy Skills. In Becoming a multiculturally competent counselor (pp. 356–384). essay, SAGE.

Payne, R. K. (2013). Hidden Rules Among Classes. In Framework for understanding poverty (4th ed.). essay, Aha! Process.

Ratts, M. J., Singh, A. A., Nassar-McMillan, S., Butler, S. K., & McCullough, J. R. (2016). Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies: Guidelines for the counseling profession. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 44(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/jmcd.12035.