Charles R. Ridley

Multicultural Training Reexamination, Operationalization, and Integration

The Multicultural Program Development Pyramid is a five-tiered framework outlining stages of multicultural counseling training (MCT) program development. The pyramid is intended to serve as a guide to help program developers formulate their own unique MCT programs. The pyramid lays out a path of critical choice points in MCT development, beginning with the generation of an explicit philosophy of training and proceeding through the stages of identifying training objectives, selecting instructional strategies, choosing from among several proposed program designs, and evaluating the program. Use of the pyramid encourages the critical examination of a full range of choices at each stage. Implications of the pyramid for current MCT, the scientist-practitioner model, and the future of MCT research and development are discussed.

The Comparative Efficacy of Christian and Secular Rational-Emotive Therapy with Christian Clients

The present study utilized a comparative psychotherapy outcome design to evaluate the relative therapeutic efficacy of Christian and secular RET with depressed Christian clients. Results showed both treatments significantly reduced depression, automatic negative thinking, irrational thinking, and general pathology. These gains were maintained after three months. There were no significant differential treatment effects. Results are discussed in terms of the implications for accommodation theory.

Multicultural Assessment: Reexamination, Reconceptualization, and Practical Application

Current suggestions for assessing clients across cultures fail to adequately aid the average practitioner This failure arises from unresolved issues and problems, interfering with the ability of most counselors and therapists to render sound clinical judgments. In response to these issues and problems, a procedure is described that sensitizes counselors to cultural data in assessment and case conceptualization. Grounded in a guiding philosophy of assessment, the Multicultural Assessment Procedure (MAP) was developed in consideration of a number of relevant critical issues. The procedure entails identifying cultural data through multiple methods of data collection, interpreting cultural data to formulate a working hypothesis, incorporating cultural data with other relevant clinical information to test the working hypothesis, and arriving at a sound (i.e., comprehensive and accurate) assessment decision. A case illustration demonstrates how to use the proposed procedure.

Training and Accreditation in Counseling Psychology

The training and accreditation section of the Third National Conference for Counseling Psychology addressed the following issues: (a) models of training and curriculum, (b) context of training, (c) cultural diversity, (d) identity and accreditation, (e) practicum and internship, and (f) career development and employment. This report presents the major components of these discussions and summarizes the deliberations and recommendations of the participants. Many of the principles articulated at the Northwestern and Greyston conferences are reaffirmed. The role, criteria, and purposes of APA accreditation are endorsed. The division leadership is encouraged to promote counseling psychology and the career development of counseling psychologists.

Critical Issues Concerning Cultural Competence

Sue’s contribution concerning cultural competence is reviewed and critiqued. General issues provoked by Sue and found in the emergent discourse on the topic are discussed, including concerns about its operationalization, its purpose, its parameters, issues pertaining to training, and considerations for evaluation. Specific issues related to Sue’s model are highlighted with suggestions for improvement and clarification. The specific issues critiqued include the following strengths: continued leadership in the field, inclusion of social justice, multidimensionality of cultural competence, and the tripartite conception of personal identity. Issues of concern include the lack of a solid rationale for the model, definitional difficulties, the lack of prescription, and limitations based on the race-based group perspective. Suggestions for future scholarship are offered.

Beyond Microskills: Toward a Model of Counseling Competence

Heeding the call to the profession, the authors present both a definition and model of counseling competence. Undergirding the model are 15 foundational principles. The authors conceptualize counseling competence as more complex and nuanced than do traditional microskills models and include cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. The model consists of 4 superordinate competencies—determining therapeutic outcomes, facilitating therapeutic outcomes, evaluating therapeutic outcomes, and sustaining therapeutic outcomes—and 12 subordinate competencies: self-appraisal/self-evaluating, structuring the therapy, building a therapeutic alliance, applying a conceptual map of therapeutic change, using therapeutic techniques, self-correcting, surmounting obstacles, leveraging opportunities, managing special situations, working with other systems of care, consulting other sources, and terminating therapy. Integral to the model is the integrated deep structure, which consists of 5 metacognitions: purposefulness, motivation, selection, sequencing, and timing.

Sources of Gain in Christian Counseling and Psychotherapy

Four major assumptions about change undergird Christian counseling. Proponents of the Christian therapies-emphasize these assumptions in varying ways and to varying degrees. Many of these theorists also claim that their approaches are effective. Yet, their underlying assumptions have not been critically examined, and empirical support for these theories is conspicuously unavailable. This article examines each assumption and then discusses their applications for therapy and research. It is argued that the lack of careful assumptive reflection among theorists of Christian therapy leads to numerous pragmatic and scientific difficulties, including the current dearth of credible treatment investigations.

Microskills Training: Evolution, Reexamination, and Call for Reform

For more than four decades, the microskills approach has been the dominant paradigm for training entry-level counseling students. At its inception, the model met a critical need: instruction in discrete counseling behaviors, which at the time was conspicuously missing from training curricula. Although these behaviors have become essential components of training in counseling psychology and other mental health specialties, the authors’ reexamination of the literature leads them to question the overall adequacy of the model. After reviewing prominent textbooks in the field and evaluating the research on microskills training, the authors identify five serious limitations of the model. While respecting and retaining the positive features of the microskills approach, its limitations bespeak the need to develop training paradigms that embrace a broader model of counselor competence.

Religiously sensitive rational emotive behavior therapy: Elegant solutions and ethical risks.

Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) can be an elegant treatment modality for explicitly religious clients. This is true in spite of the traditional antireligious stance of Albert Ellis. In this article, the authors summarize the evolution of Elliss views on religion and mental health, consider potential ethical dilemmas caused by utilizing REBT with religious clients, and recommend strategies for reducing violation of ethical and specialty guidelines in work with religious clients. The authors conclude by proposing a general model for religiously sensitive psychotherapy, which may serve to undergird theorizing and research on the application of REBT and other treatment approaches to religious clients.

Religiously Sensitive Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: Theory, Techniques, and Brief Excerpts From a Case

Rational emotive behavior therapys (REBTs) methods for fostering change, such as disputation of irrational beliefs, are similar to the kinds of activities one may expect to encounter in many organized religions. REBT also bears a strong theoretical affinity with some religions because of its preferred therapeutic goal of helping clients examine and change their beliefs. Furthermore, the formal religious tenets and traditions to which many clients adhere will usually include doctrinal material that is highly congruent with REBTs theory of change. Such belief-oriented material maybe enlisted during REBT to help religious clients evaluate and change their self-defeating, irrational beliefs. A case that integrates religious belief with REBT is presented. Finally, the authors conclude with a brief summary of preliminary outcome research regarding the efficacy of this approach. Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) is surprisingly similar to organized religion in its approach to fostering change. Similarities with the practice of religion are apparent in both REBTs theoretical assumptions about change and its essential techniques for producing change. In this article, we propose that these similarities and affinities offer clinicians who practice REBT