Only 20 percent of doctoral degrees in psychology go to students of color, despite the fact that 40 percent of Americans are people of color, according to Nayeli Chavez-Duenas, PhD. Even with the shifting demographics in the United States, studies have demonstrated low levels of cultural competency among psychologists. The proposed revisions to APA’s multicultural guidelines are designed to address this problem by offering concrete suggestions for preparing psychologists to become multiculturally competent.

 The current guidelines were approved in 2002 and have been studied in most psychology training programs, providing important direction about preparation of psychologists for working in a diverse world,

“Addressing culture within psychology requires complex thinking,” said Patricia Arredondo, EdD, one of the lead scholars working on the proposed revisions. This comment reflects the spirit of the revisions, which will seek to build on the current guidelines by maintaining the core principles, while emphasizing ways to operationalize and apply the values.

I regularly teach our required diversity/ multicultural competence course to master’s students and one of the questions they often as me is, “But how do I do it?” Getting buy-in for the importance of multicultural competence is a needed first step for some students but even those who fully embrace the idea in theory struggle to learn how to put it into practice. The proposed revisions offer strategies for just that.

The new guidelines would offer ways to deconstruct and increase self-awareness about one’s own ethnic identity, said Hector Adames, PsyD. They provide specific recommendations about developing awareness about various aspects of identity (such as one’s identity as a white person), while encouraging psychologists to “use multiple lenses to understand complex processes, especially complex human experiences and identities, ” according to Adames.

I am especially enthusiastic about the proposed recommendations for skill development, including how to engage in dialogue and behavioral change.

Although the revisions are not yet available (they are undergoing the approval process within APA), I am excited to take what I have learned back home with me. I will certainly be integrating some new ideas as I prepare my fall syllabi in the coming weeks.