Cultural Competency

Many a times, we witness people from varying backgrounds being treated in an unfair manner or actively discriminated against. This unjust behaviour might stem from something as little as, for instance, someone’s inability to buy clothes from an expensive brand or a friend in your social group who cannot afford using an iPhone, which is essentially a luxurious commodity. 

Moving on to the bigger issue, sit back and think to yourself: what happens when this discrimination aggravates? What if a person is being discriminated against based on his identity- something that he has no control over?

Drawing relations from personal anecdotes, growing up in a society marred by several dangerously normalized gender, caste, class and other differences, I realized their systemic nature only much later, by pondering over the causes and implications of a few long-established legal institutions. 

In a country such as India, “secularism” seems like a far-fetched dream. While we proudly claim to be a secular country, multiple incidents have taken place where lives have been compromised under the pretext of “Hindutva”, which seeks to promote Hindu traditions all over the country. While many might argue in favour of Hindutva and restoration of our traditional values; focusing and promoting a particular religion can undoubtedly be seen as an imposition wherein people are coerced to abide by the majority due to threat to life and their family.

To alleviate the situation beforehand, multiple laws have been introduced that reinforce the concept of secularism and seek to spread more awareness about the fundamental rights guaranteed to all.  

In this particular case, The Constitution of India in Article 14 and Article 15 closely works with protecting individual’s rights. It identifies the pre-existing problems and fallacious stigmas deeply embedded in our society since time unknown. Another essential law, Article 29, lays major emphasis on the protection of cultural expressions of minorities. 

So, how exactly does psychology come into play when we talk about a person who might have faced discrimination in his/her life?

Cultural competency deals with the concept of respecting every individual’s sentiments and working towards the idea of “unity in diversity”, literally. Splitting up the term, it’s quite easy to interpret and derive a sense of commonality from the word “cultural” whereas on the other hand, “competency” simply refers to the ability to successfully establish a safe space for everyone regardless of their cultural differences. 

The concept of multicultural competency originally took birth in the United States of America as they felt a need for encompassing its diverse population of African Americans, Indian Americans, Asian Americans, Lations, Muslims Americans and so on. Through this, they sought to promote a sense of togetherness and thus, work towards building a stronger economy.

In the field of psychology, psychiatrists often consider cultural competency as a vital tool for creating a trustworthy relationship with their patient. With the help of this concept, they seek to create a safe cultural hub for their patient which prompts them to talk freely and openly, despite their past history of discrimination. 

In retrospect, there came a time when the American society realised the need to train professionals in an effective manner to deal with patients belonging from different backgrounds and nationalities. For this, they mainly focused on three aspects of this concept. 

First of all, the realisation of one’s own personal opinions and faiths which would, in turn, work towards eliminating biased views and ideologies. Second, acquiring the required knowledge about other diverse cultures and understanding their point of view on cultural or even, generic matters. Lastly, incorporating the aforementioned strategies to achieve a sense of global interconnectedness and helping people cope with their mental health problems by literally placing yourself in their shoes and looking at the world from someone else’s perspective.

The main idea for introducing a strategy such as this is for encouraging counselling professionals to have a self-analytical theory while approaching their patient’s problem. 

In summation, in my personal opinion, I strongly feel cultural competence is a crucial and effective strategy, one that should also be incorporated in other countries to bring people together and create a new ‘cultural comfort zone’ outside their comfort zone. As we can confer, acknowledgement and recognition of other cultures can be considered as an essential prerequisite for any economy with no doubt whatsoever!