Cultural Humility & Broaching
The Multicultural Orientation Model's three components (humility, comfort, opportunities), how to build each one, and the frameworks counselors use to actually broach race/culture in-session — ADDRESSING, RESPECTFUL, and the Multidimensional Model of Broaching Behavior. Lecture-only content, no paired textbook chapter.
Multicultural Orientation Model (MOM)
MOM is a way of being with clients who are different — not a knowledge checklist. It's meta-theoretical (layers onto any therapy orientation), shifts focus from knowledge to relationship, takes an intersectional/holistic view, and is empirically supported.
- Culturally Relevant Ethical Practice
- Avoid dichotomous/binary thinking and quick judgments; apply the ethics code in a way that actually accounts for cultural context.
MOM's Three Components
Cultural Humility
"An accurate perception of their cultural values as well as maintain an other-oriented perspective that involves respect, lack of superiority and attunement regarding their own cultural beliefs and values."
- Protective factor in the counseling relationship
- Builds stronger working alliances
- Linked to higher client retention
- Gives a framework for addressing power imbalances in therapy
Cultural Comfort
The physiological stress-or-ease a counselor feels before, during, and after conversations about culture. Strengthens the relationship — but has to be deliberately developed:
- Intrapersonal — self-reflection, exposure, Therapist Cultural Comfort Scale (client-rated)
- Interpersonal — tolerate hard sessions, post-session reflection, consultation
- Professional — ethics, research literacy, CE, a diverse network
Cultural Opportunities
Moments in-session that naturally open up exploring a client's culture as it relates to their presenting concern.
- Can be client- or counselor-initiated
- Must be timely and fitting — not forced
- Improves treatment outcomes when used well
Why exposure matters
Anxiety functions as an alarm signaling something unknown/new/potentially risky — comfort grows specifically through repeated exposure, not avoidance. Counselors also have to work through their own reluctance (anxiety, bias, burnout) to stay culturally present in session.
Make a commitment
- Know your own strengths and growing edges
- Take the Cultural Humility and Enactment Scale
- Understand your own cultural identity, and keep re-evaluating your comfort
- Sustain intentional engagement with a variety of cultural groups
- Get outside your bubble — seek out discomfort on purpose
- Check your ego; lead from the heart
- Practice noticing cultural opportunities in daily life, not just in session
Cultural Broaching
Broaching = the approach counselors use to discuss racial, ethnic, and cultural identities as they connect to a client's presenting concern. It's a deliberate, receptive way of integrating sociocultural/individual identity into the relationship — requiring both readiness and competence to actually facilitate the conversation. The counselor never treats race/culture as the problem; instead, counselor and client work together to figure out how it's relevant and build a plan from there (Day-Vines et al., 2007; Pope-Davis et al., 2002).
Multidimensional Model of Broaching Behavior (MMBB)
Four dimensions of broaching skill
- Intra-counseling — naming the racial/cultural difference within the counselor-client dyad itself
- Intra-individual — general inquiry into the client's own background, to understand them as a person
- Intra-racial/ethnic/cultural — within-group tension about belonging to one's own group
- Inter-racial/ethnic/cultural — intersection of identities against a broader social/institutional context (Day-Vines et al., 2007, 2013, 2020)
Identity Checklists: ADDRESSING vs. RESPECTFUL
Both give counselors a checklist of identity facets to consider before/during broaching — but they don't cover identical ground. Worth drilling the differences, not just each list on its own.
| ADDRESSING | RESPECTFUL |
|---|---|
| Age | Religious & Spiritual Identity |
| Developmental disabilities | Economic Status & Social Class Background |
| Disabilities (acquired) | Sexual Identity |
| Religion | Psychological Maturity |
| Ethnicity | Ethnic/Racial Identity |
| Sexual orientation | Chronological/Developmental Challenges |
| Socioeconomic status | Trauma |
| Indigenous group membership | Family Background/History |
| Nationality | Unique Physical Characteristics |
| Gender | Location and Language |