The Experience of Counseling Interns and Their Perceived Preparedness of Multicultural Counseling: A Phenomenological Study

Author

Bianca Maria MilzFollow

Date of Award

Winter 12-19-2019

Document Type

Thesis (699 registration)

Degree Name

Master of Science in Counseling

Department

Graduate Studies

Committee Chair

Jessica Brown

Keywords

Multicultural Counseling Development, Multicultural Counseling Competence, Self-Efficacy, Mindfulness

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to acquire additional knowledge into the lived experiences of counseling interns and their perception of readiness for multicultural counseling. A phenomenological approached was used to understand the lived experiences and describe the essence of the phenomenon. Master’s level counseling interns (N=8) in CACREP accredited programs were surveyed in which they responded to five open-end question related to their experience. From those responses two themes emerged, participants described their perceived preparedness related to their mindfulness and education with diverse populations. The textural and structural descriptions of responses were combined (Creswell & Poth, 2018) to arrive at the essence of the participants’ experiences: Perceived preparedness of multicultural counseling was characterized by heightened awareness. The overarching finding from this study showed that all counseling interns perceived themselves prepared for multicultural counseling. These findings contradict previous findings by Malott et al (2014) study regarding a perceived lack of cultural knowledge of white counselor which was believed to thus affect their abilities to provided services across cultures (Malott et al, 2014). It is recommended to explore further research on an individual’s open mindedness or in other words mindfulness and its contribution to multicultural counseling competence.

Recommended Citation

Milz, Bianca Maria, "The Experience of Counseling Interns and Their Perceived Preparedness of Multicultural Counseling: A Phenomenological Study" (2019). Dissertations, Theses, and Projects. 252.
https://red.mnstate.edu/thesis/252