Use the Hays ADDRESSING Model Template to assess your cultural identity and analyze the implications your cultural identifications may have on your professional relationships.
In our diverse society, multicultural competency is key for any professional in the field of psychology. It is vital to recognize that cultural identity is multifaceted and to analyze how your own cultural identifications and biases may impact your professional relationships.
To deepen your understanding, you are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of your professional community.
- When you see a person for the first time, do you have any assumptions or expectations as to how he or she may behave based on appearance?
- Why it is important for practitioners to be aware of their own life experiences, personal beliefs and attitudes, cultural values, social identities, privileges, biases, and prejudices?
- How can unexamined privileges, biases, and prejudices affect one’s professional work?
- What strategies can you use to ensure your biases do not impact your work relationships and decisions?
- What cultural populations might you work with that you currently have less cultural competence in?
- What guidelines for working with these populations would you consider important?
- What specific steps could you take to gain familiarity, understanding, and comfort with groups that you have limited experience working with?
- Use the Hays ADDRESSING Model Template to complete your Multicultural Identities Self-Assessment.
- You will complete this template to conduct a cultural self-assessment that describes your identity in all elements of the Hays ADDRESSING model.
- Note: Use the template provided for all work on this assessment. Do not submit a paper. Papers will not be graded.
- For more information about the Hays ADDRESSING model, you may review the following chapter from Hays: “Looking Into the Clinician’s Mirror: Cultural Self-Assessment.”
- Complete the table on the template and review your entries.
- Respond to the three questions posed in the space below the table in the template. There are no “right” or “wrong” responses for this assessment. You will be assessed on your insight and ability to recognize the implications of your privilege and biases when you work with others.
- Written communication: Should be free of errors that detract from the overall message.
- Format: Use the Hays ADDRESSING Model Template (linked above). Use current APA style and formatting guidelines as applicable to this assessment.
- Font: Arial, 12 point.
This assessment will help you evaluate how your cultural memberships influence your ability to work professionally with people of similar cultural backgrounds and those with different cultural backgrounds. Many learners find this an eye-opening experience, as they have tended to focus on being the social minority or majority in one area in their lives, and not considered how all of us have multifaceted cultural identities. For this reason, all of us are likely to have experienced being in a cultural majority in some respects and being in a cultural minority in others. Further, it is inevitable that all clinicians have biases in relation to cultural identities and failure to recognize these biases creates the potential for harm. It takes more strength to acknowledge your biases than to argue that you do not have any.
Such acknowledgement and self-awareness is the first critical step in developing strategies for improving your cultural competency around each of those biases to become a more equitable and effective practitioner. This applies to all work in psychology, not just clinical work. In other words, developing cultural competency is important for psychologists who consult and work with businesses (I/O psychologists); those who work in the classroom (clinical, general, educational psychologists); those who work with athletes (sport psychologists); professionals who interface with the legal system (forensic psychologists); those who treat patients, families, and groups with mental illness (clinical psychologists); and those who conduct research (various types of psychologists).
This assessment is based on Dr. Pamela Hays’ (2008) ADDRESSING model, which asks clinicians to look into their own areas of cultural influence, privilege, and potential bias. ADDRESSING stands for Age (and generational influence), Developmental and acquired Disabilities, Religion and spiritual identity, Ethnicity and racial identity, Socioeconomic status, Sexual orientation, Indigenous heritage, National origin, and Gender. Although there are many other aspects of diversity, these are the most common aspects in the United States. Hays’ model has been a useful framework for educators, counselors, and psychologists to examine their own cultural influences, potential biases, and own perspectives. They can then develop plans for addressing how these differences might impact their work with others.
Reference
Hays, P. A. (2008). Looking into the clinician’s mirror: Cultural self-assessment. In P. A. Hays (Ed.), Addressing cultural complexities in practice: Assessment, diagnosis, and therapy (2nd ed., pp. 41–62). American Psychological Association.
