Enhancing Multicultural Empathy in the Classroom and Beyond: A Proposed Model for Training Beginner Counselors

In this article, the authors discuss the concept of multicultural empathy, an extension of the current literature surrounding cultural empathy. Here, we define multicultural empathy based on an extensive review of the literature and propose a model to assess multicultural empathy in beginner counselors. By introducing external observation rather than self-report measures to assess multicultural empathy, counselors can be rated on five levels of multicultural empathy (ranging from consistently inadequate to consistently advanced) and across four dimensions of human experience (cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and developmental). The proposed Multicultural Empathy Model can be used in counselor training and supervision and has practical implications in a wide range of settings, from classrooms, to training, clinical, and school sites.