Question

In regards to counseling, how do you manage or moderate your bias towards clients? What bias will challenge you the most and why?

Answer 1

During counseling, it is imperative to remove, manage, or moderate bias. This is in accordance with the principle of unconditional positive reagrd toward the client, regardless of whether the counsellor agrees with the clien'ts values, principles, thoughts/feelings, etc.

To manage bias, we must first ackowledge that it exists. This is the first step. To do this, we must be aware of our thoughts and recognize that they may need to be changed. Managing or moderating bias can be done by recognizing that the client has behaved/thought a certain way because of past experiences. We are constantly being shaped by our environment, and we do not know all the forces/factors that have gone into finally producing the behavior in question. Managing bias can also be done by putting yourself in the person's shoes, by trying to experience the world in the way the client is experiencing it. Some challenging biases include, for example, having positive regard for a man engaging in domestic violence, by people engaging in gender/racial/age/disability discrimination without seeing it as wrong, etc.