Disability is a state usually viewed as deviant by people without it and the community. Such negative attitudes are not necessarily the same as those held by people with disabilities and their families. Consequently, even well-intentioned professional counselors are subject to the impact of societal and historical attitudes concerning disability. They significantly contribute to the view of individuals with a disability as broken, diseased, and in need of fixing. The negative attitude can adversely affect the counselor-client relationship and hinder the achievement of counseling goals.
Over the past years, there have been changes in societal views concerning treating an individual with a disability. The disabled live in society instead of designated institutions and rely on community-based specialists for oral health care, unlike in the past, when people with disabilities were viewed as unhealthy, deviant, and defective. Thus, changes have been positive as the care for people with disabilities has improved, and the social exclusion which used to exist is slowly disappearing.
One of the most challenging disabilities an individual can acquire is a chronic respiratory disorder such as asthma. In most cases, people with severe asthma are discriminated against by the non-sufferers of the condition, who do not take the disease seriously, which leads to neglect even when the asthmatic individual may suffer a deadly asthma attack. If I had this disability, it would adversely affect my ability to work. I would cope with the disability through physical activity and lifestyle changes and taking responsibility for treating the disorder to help advance my health.
Multicultural competence can be described as knowledge, skills, and individual attributes required to live and work in a culturally and socially diverse world. These skills are needed because they inspire the acceptance and acknowledgment of differences in appearance, culture, and behavior. Present multicultural training approach may be limited in supporting counselors to gain cultural competencies required for effective interventions with culturally different clients in global communities. However, awareness skills and knowledge can be helpful for the client in counseling. Cultural awareness is assumed to involve implicit and explicit, affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses, impacting relationships with those from another culture. Cultural acquaintance is appreciative and understanding of clients’ perspectives by showing empathy. Awareness helps counselors connect with culturally varied individuals by understanding and appreciating the individuality of routine life and acknowledging world commonalities. Cultural skills offer maximized effective counseling interventions to counselors in developing qualities of multicultural competence.