Counseling and social work belong to the number of fields that involve quite close association with clients who are seeking for help and valuable advice. Even though all the future specialists are encouraged to be as fair as possible during the work with clients, some issues may occur and make the work less effective. Among these issues, there are prejudice and bias. It usually happens that such problems are caused by numerous stereotypes that people support. Although many people understand that it is inappropriate to make conclusions about people based on their nationality, race, appearance, personal preferences, and habits, they may keep laughing at jokes connected to these differences between people. Thus, the person supports certain stereotypes about people forgetting that it can make collaboration between different people less effective (Rogers & Pilgrim, 2014). I suppose that it can be an issue for me in my future work because it is sometimes hard to avoid making conclusions about people at once. I do not consider myself a person who cannot stand the lifestyles of other people, but sometimes I meet people who look or behave just like ones who hurt me, and it can be not easy to distract from these thoughts. Also, the same can be true for clients; they can be suspicious due to their aversion to something about the specialist, and it may also be necessary to teach the clients to be more open-minded.
There is no doubt that counselors and other people related to mental health programs advocate for diversity and parity of services because equal access to healthcare services is an indispensable feature of any developed society (Goodyear et al., 2016). Speaking about mental health, it is necessary to show that people can be provided with help and support, and nobody is going to blame them for some features that they cannot change. To put it in other words, it is inappropriate to deprive some people of the right to maintain their mental health. As for the contribution that I can make into the development of these ideas, I am ready to extend my knowledge on the topic, work with clients from different social groups, and encourage my colleagues to support these ideas as well. I believe that cooperation between co-workers can be regarded as a force for change.
There are a lot of approaches that can be used to accept other people. To begin with, it can be important to study the history of the region I am living more thoroughly. I suppose that it can help me understand national diversity and the contribution of each group of people to the country’s development. Furthermore, it is necessary to pay more attention to communication with different people and study how to establish contacts with them more effectively. Also, it may be important to try to work with different people and assess the impact that individual differences have on the work results. Therefore, it will be possible to become more experienced and understand the difference between real problems and stereotypes.
What is more, I suppose that traveling can also be a good idea as it encourages people to learn something new and have a fresh look at common things. In the end, I suppose that understanding the perspectives of other people is impossible without collaboration with them. So, it may be important to become a part of a working group where people of different origins do their best to achieve a common goal.
References
Goodyear, R., Lichtenberg, J., Hutman, H., Overland, E., Bedi, R., Christiani, K., & Grant, J. (2016). A global portrait of counselling psychologists’ characteristics, perspectives, and professional behaviors. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 29(2), 115-138.
Rogers, A., & Pilgrim, D. (2014). A sociology of mental health and illness. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.