문화적 역량증진 집단프로그램에 참여한 한 상담전공수련생의 문화적 정체성 탐색 경험

Abstract

This study centers on the experience of a trainee counselor, who has participated in a Cultural Competency Promotion Group Program for counsellors, from a narrative approach. The trainee is a woman in her mid-40s and currently enrolled in a graduate school of counseling program. This trainee participated in group counseling sessions to explore her cultural identity. Sessions totaled 30 hours over 4 days. The research process consisted of listening to her life stories as she was participating in the program, and compiling interview data and messages exchanged with her. She grew up as a second daughter, lacking a ‘sense of presence.’ She suffered from the micro-aggressions of her stepmother and the blatant discrimination of her birth mother. She said she was discriminated against by her competent sister and her male sibling before marriage and oppressed by her patriarchal mother-in-law and husband after marriage. Her experience of discrimination and oppression has led to a sense of incompetence even when she interacts with her own daughter who is excelling as a student in school. Recognizing herself and significant others as cultural beings while participating in the group program, facilitated her escape from the perpetrator-victim frame of dichotomy and the beginning of transforming herself into a cultural agent. The sadness and resentment she experienced as an individual turned into an understanding of each party’s cultural characteristics, which allowed her to gain the power to communicate with other people when they are in conflict with her. Based on the cultural identity recognized through participating in the group program, she achieved the power to pay attention to the state of ‘being herself,’ to advocate for herself, and to live an active day-to-day life realizing ‘being herself.’