A Cultural Formulation Approach to Career ... - ResearchGate

478 Journal of Career Development 37(1)
regard to a specific outcome than if just gender was accounted for in the equation.
The integrative model for cross-cultural counseling and psychotherapy was conceived
to provide a more complex, integrative, and dynamic conception of human
beings.
Instead of developing a whole new approach to career assessment just for Asian
Americans, there are a few variables that can be incorporated into existing career
assessment tools to make the assessment process and outcome more culturally valid.
By using Leong’s (1996b) integrative model of examining Universal, Group, and
Individual dimensions of human personality, one can increase the cultural validity
of our cultural formulations. Cultural validity is concerned with how valid a
construct or measure or model is for other cultural groups above and beyond the traditional
western European groups on which most constructs have been validated.
The cultural formulations approach needs to recognize the importance of using the
person environment interaction model rather than just focusing on the person and
ignoring the cultural context variables in the lives of racial and ethnic minorities.
The value of Leong’s (1996b) integrative model is in providing a guideline for
using the proposed cultural formulations approach with Asian Americans. It begins
with recognizing the importance of the multidimensional nature of clients and complex
interactions of the Universal, Group, and Individual dimensions in the lives of
our career clients. It moves on to recommend using an integrated multidimensional
approach to examine Universal, Group, or Individual elements that play a significant
role in influencing the career choice, adjustment, and outcomes for our Asian
American clients. Of course, studies are needed to investigate whether the integration
of cultural general and culture-specific variables (e.g., cultural identity) in this
integrative process can lead to more relevant and appropriate cultural formulations
in career assessment and career counseling with Asian American clients.
Case Study
Case Description of Anil Patel
A 20-year-old, single, homosexually oriented Asian Indian American male is
referred to the University Health Center by his academic advisor because he displays
somatic symptoms such as headaches, stomach aches, and fatigue. He is a junior student
taking classes at a southern university where Christian beliefs are dominant and
where members of ethnic minority groups are rare. His advisor knows that he is a
bright student but that he has lost interest in his school work, lacks motivation, and
is failing in some of his classes. He has told his advisor that his parents want him to
go into medicine and he thinks that that would be a good career choice as then he
would be able to take care of his family, get married, and have a stable future. Anil
has to take the medical entrance examination (MCATs: Medical College Admission
Tests) in a few months and fears that he will fail in them and also let his parents
down, and in turn bring shame and embarrassment to everyone in his family. In his
478
Downloaded from http://jcd.sagepub.com at MICHIGAN STATE UNIV LIBRARIES on May 19, 2010