At CARE Counseling, Inc., we believe therapy must honor the whole person—and that includes culture, race, ethnicity, language, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, and lived experience. No one enters therapy in a vacuum. Each of us carries history, identity, and social context that deeply shape how we think, feel, and relate to others.

Multicultural counseling is not a specialty—it is an ethical foundation of competent care.

Multicultural counseling is a therapeutic approach that intentionally acknowledges and integrates clients’ cultural identities and sociopolitical realities into the counseling process.

This includes:

• Recognizing cultural strengths and worldviews

• Addressing systemic oppression and discrimination

• Honoring the intersections of race, class, gender, ability, religion, and more

• Avoiding assumptions based on the therapist’s cultural lens

• Creating space for clients to express and explore their identity safely

It also means that our clinicians remain committed to lifelong learning, humility, and advocacy.

Why Multicultural Counseling Matters

1. Cultural Identity Shapes Mental Health

Research consistently shows that cultural values and norms influence how individuals:

• Understand and express distress

• Seek help or cope with stress

• Define healing, support, and success

What feels “healthy” or “normal” is often culturally shaped. Therapy must be flexible enough to support a variety of emotional languages and cultural practices.

2. Marginalized Groups Face Unique Barriers

Clients from historically oppressed groups often experience:

• Medical and mental health mistrust (due to past harms)

• Stigma in their communities

• Underdiagnosis or misdiagnosis

• Financial, linguistic, and access-related barriers

Multicultural therapy is an invitation to be seen fully—without needing to educate the therapist, code-switch, or minimize cultural pain.

3. Power and Privilege Exist in the Therapy Room

Therapists at CARE Counseling, Inc. are trained to examine how dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression may show up in session. This is part of practicing cultural humility—an ongoing commitment to self-awareness, openness, and accountability.

Scientific Foundations and Best Practices

Multicultural counseling is grounded in psychological and social science. Key frameworks we use include:

• Sue & Sue’s Multicultural Competence Model: Focuses on counselor awareness, knowledge, and skills related to cultural identities and systems of power.

• Helms’s Racial Identity Development Theory: Explores how clients and counselors alike navigate racial identity and socialization.

• Intersectionality Theory (Crenshaw): Emphasizes the compounded impact of overlapping identities (e.g., being Black, queer, and disabled).

• Liberation Psychology & Decolonized Therapy: Challenges dominant Eurocentric frameworks and centers community, dignity, and justice.

CARE Counseling clinicians stay current on research through training in culturally responsive interventions, anti-oppressive practice, and equity-focused care models.

What Multicultural Counseling Looks Like in Practice

At CARE Counseling, Inc., multicultural counseling may include:

• Affirming your lived experience in a society that marginalizes parts of your identity

• Exploring cultural or intergenerational trauma

• Reframing mental health through your values and language

• Supporting bicultural or multicultural identity development

• Addressing immigration, acculturation, or racial trauma

• Using therapeutic tools that reflect your worldview and strengths

Therapy is not one-size-fits-all—and it shouldn’t be.

Who Benefits from Multicultural Therapy?

Everyone has a cultural identity—even if it’s been historically “normalized” (e.g., White, English-speaking, middle-class, etc.). Multicultural therapy can support:

• Anyone feeling unseen or misunderstood in prior therapy settings

• BIPOC individuals and families

• LGBTQIA+ clients

• Interracial or intercultural couples

• First-generation immigrants and their children

• Clients exploring spiritual, religious, or indigenous traditions

Our Commitment at CARE Counseling, Inc.

We are proud to create inclusive, culturally affirming therapy for all. Our clinicians represent diverse identities and maintain an active commitment to cultural competence and justice.

This means:

• Ongoing training and supervision

• Client-centered and identity-affirming practice

• Transparency, feedback, and accountability

• Advocacy within and beyond the therapy room

Whether you are navigating cultural grief, systemic harm, identity exploration, or simply seeking a therapist who understands your world—we are here to help.

You deserve to be seen, heard, and held just as you are.