You are required to conceptualize the multiple influences on your socio-cultural heritage, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, and religious/spiritual orientation. Your paper should be three to four pages in length (not including title and reference page) and written in APA-style format. Discuss how your sociocultural developmental histories and experiences present advantages and potential challenges to therapeutic work, and ways in which you will balance and manifest your own sociocultural background in your work as a therapist (or future therapist). Your analysis must be supported by multicultural literature covered in this class and through your own independent research. Do not ask me how many sources you should have; this paper needs to be a professional paper and your thoughts must be supported appropriately. Be sure they are scholarly resources. This assignment is intended to be an opportunity for you to highlight the most salient aspect(s) of your culture, your cultural development, and/or what you learned the most about yourself in this class. Be sure to integrate how your cultural values and biases may impact your professional work and how you plan to manage and continue to grow. The intent of this exercise is twofold: (1) to engage in critical self-analysis through theory application and conceptualization from a sociocultural lens; and (2) to practice talking about oneself as cultural beings, which we ask clients to do in therapy. Be thoughtful of areas where you might be very defensive; this paper is an opportunity for you to grow in self-exploration. I am of Armenian descent and would prefer it to be written from that perspective.
