This assignment invites you to engage in
self-examination, which will help you to become more aware of the unique
features of your experiences, beliefs, and values. “Everything we see
is filtered through our personal frame of reference and our very
presence changes the context. Therefore, we do not discover behavior, we
create it” (Becvar & Becvar, 1999, p. 36). This means that we can
never achieve a completely neutral stance; we can never divorce
ourselves from our own biases, assumptions, and beliefs. What we can do
is to take responsibility for our assumptions, biases and beliefs and
recognize them as such. This process requires recurrent self-examination
and self-reflection.

Part I (Adopted from Johnny Saldana): Self-examination

Divide an empty sheet of paper into three parts. On the top of the
paper, please write: “This is where I am today,” in the middle “This is
how I got here,” and towards the bottom “This is where I would like to
be.” Then take a few moments and write a short paragraph to describe
each statement in the framework of your professional aspiration to
become a successful and culturally competent Marriage and Family
Therapist.

Part II: Self-observation

Choose a public location where you can easily observe people without
necessarily being noticed. Take 15 minutes to observe several people
that you notice in the crowd. You can choose to take notes pertaining to
the type of people that you are noticing, your reactions towards these
people, and your thoughts while completing this assignment. After
completing the assignment, write a 2-3 page paper summarizing your
experience pertaining to these three categories (people description,
your reactions [physical and emotional], your thoughts in the process of
completing the assignment).

Part III: Self-reflection

In this part of the assignment, you are invited to reflect on two
concepts: change and diversity. Reflecting on the concept of change,
consider different factors that you believe are the most important to
create the experience of change. In a 1-page reflection, please provide
an example of a profound change that you experienced at some point of
your life.

Reflecting on diversity, use your critical and creative thinking
skills to compose a reflective essay that focuses on key ideas related
to diversity, your personal philosophy of diversity, and the importance
for cultural competence in family therapy. Please incorporate references
to the assigned readings to support your thesis. Then following the
examples in the Speak Out section on pp. 58-59 of the Family Therapy
Magazine (see the Books and Resources for this material), write your own
entry to add to the page if you were invited to “speak out.” The whole
entry should be 4-5 pages.

Aspects of culture and diversity must be interwoven throughout the three parts of this assignment.

Length: 6-8 pages total (includes parts I, II, and III)

Your paper should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas
and concepts that are presented in the course and provide new thoughts
and insights relating directly to this topic. Your response should
reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards.

Upload your assignment using the Upload Assignment button. Your
submission should be composed of three parts combined in one document:
self-examination (1 page), self-observation (2-3 pages essay), and
self-reflection (3-4 pages essay).

Gehart, D. R. (2014) Mastering competencies in family therapy

Read Chapter 2

Document/OtherReferenceInstructionSpeak Out
Speak Out.pdf.pd

Signature Assignment: Creating Therapeutic Alliance

During this week, you will become familiar with multiple factors that
can contribute to the success or failure of a therapeutic encounter.
Researchers pointed out that a therapist’s ability to apply a specific
therapeutic model successfully usually accounts for only about 8 to 15
percent of a successful outcome, while a therapist’s ability to
establish a meaningful connection with a client, will account for as
much as 30 percent. Therefore, it is important to examine and apply in
practice diverse factors that contribute to the development of a
successful therapeutic alliance between a client and a therapist. Among
many other factors, taking into consideration the diversity of our
backgrounds and experiences and building our connections while
accounting for the concept of diversity constitute important steps
towards success. In addition, become aware of our own perceptions,
belief systems, and general way of being is an important aspect of our
continuous professional development as Marriage and Family Therapist.
This week, you will complete your Signature Assignment, which will constitute the first step in this developmental process, which will continue throughout the program.

From last assignment:

I thought your content of this paper more than
completed the assignment expectations. You have clearly identified a major
“theme’ of the paper and brought in ideas from your readings to support these
thoughts. Your organization is clear and your ideas are well-stated.

Literally the only thing that I noticed that is
really subtle is related to your in-text citations. If you have an entire paragraph
from one source, you would put the in-text citation after the first sentence of
the paragraph. Often times also, ideas that are not common knowledge will be
cited with an in-text citation (even if you personally know it – you have to
prove that the idea is legitimate). So, you will see a couple of places where I
put “(CITE)” – I would just insert a reference here (likely one of the two that
you have here.

Please let me know if you have any questions!  This is very well-done – especially given
your circumstances.

~Valerie Glass
6/21/16

She gave a 99% Yeah!!