Inside-out approaches to teaching multicultural techniques: Guidelines for family therapy trainers

Abstract

Teaching multicultural counseling to students is a challenging endeavor for most instructors. The traditional type of learning is an "Outside-in" approach where students are expected to absorb information in a passive manner. This article introduces some innovative multicultural family therapy teaching approaches that can be employed to create an "Inside-out" approach to learning with prospective family therapists. These approaches imply learning by doing as well as using a self-reflective stance by the therapist. The learning context revolves around personal encounters and experiential processes in the classroom as well as analyzing real life experiences. Instructional approaches include self-reflexive exercises, cultural genograms, ecological maps, role-playing, interviews with actual immigrant families, and elaboration of the immigration odysseys. © 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.