Chapter 7: Multicultural Counseling and Social Justice: The Role of Spirituality, Emotional Intelligence, and Mature Racial Identity

This chapter develops an understanding of culturally competent professional practice in counseling. In doing so, it specifically focuses on issues relating to spirituality, emotional intelligence, and mature racial identity. The central assertion of the chapter is that spirituality, emotional intelligence, and mature racial identity provide critical psychological resources for the counselor—particularly in a multicultural context. This chapter commences by individually exploring multicultural counseling as a particular form of counseling practice, and spirituality, emotional intelligence, and racial identity as important psychological constructs. The chapter then examines salient relationships between multicultural competence and these aforementioned constructs. The chapter concludes by highlighting the implications for multicultural counseling competence of counselor education leading to spiritual, emotional, and racial awareness and sensitivity.