CityU Scholarly Work (Open Access)
Permanent URI for this collection
Contains open access scholarly work from City University of Seattle students, faculty, and staff.
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Bridging Language and Culture: Best Practices for Bilingual Counsellors Working with Immigrant Populations(2025-12-15) Deng, ShiyuThis capstone project explores best practices for bilingual counsellors working with immigrant populations through a qualitative literature review. Grounded in linguistic code-switching theory and multicultural counselling theory, the study synthesizes current research to examine how language, culture, and identity interact to shape the therapeutic process. Findings reveal that bilingual counselling enhances therapeutic alliance, emotional expression, and client trust by allowing communication in clients’ preferred languages. However, bilingual clinicians face ethical and professional challenges, including blurred boundaries, transference, countertransference, and risks of burnout. The review identifies significant gaps in training and supervision, particularly in the Canadian context, where bilingual counselling practices remain underdeveloped despite the country’s linguistic diversity. Clinical implications outlined emphasize the intentional use of code-switching as a therapeutic tool, ongoing cultural humility, and awareness of intersectionality. This project concludes with recommendations for developing structured training, supervision, and policy initiatives to support culturally and ethically competent bilingual counselling practices.Item How Meaning-Making Impacts Identity Formation within Posttraumatic Growth(2025-11) Kraus, RyanMeaning-making impacts identity formation within posttraumatic growth, yet the linkage is described unevenly across the literature. This project examines how meaning processes shape identity formation and clarifies the mechanisms, conditions, and boundaries under which identity repair is most credible. The methodology adopted is a critical literature review and analysis. Thirteen core studies were reviewed. The majority were quantitative studies. Due to most included designs being correlational, conclusions are framed as practice-relevant inferences rather than causal claims. Findings cluster into three areas. First, mechanisms, identity repair appears most credible when discrepancy between global and situational meaning narrows, reflective style shifts toward more deliberate processing, and clarified purposes are enacted in roles that others can recognize. Second, contextual conditions, belonging, routine, and realistic access to roles support enactment, while material strain and service limits require careful pacing. Third, boundaries, single-time self-report is not sufficient for durable claims, so monitoring pairs brief self-report with behaviour-adjacent indicators and applies cultural and ethical safeguards. Implications for Alberta practice include a brief, clinician-facing workflow that reads self-report alongside role-based indicators to keep change visible under session caps and documentation demands. Recommendations include integrating light, role-based monitoring into short-term services and strengthening cultural adaptation and longitudinal designs in future research so identity repair is assessed through both reflection and enacted change.Item Integrating Nature-Based Therapy Interventions in Schools: Supporting Students with Anxiety in a Post COVID-19 World(2025-10) Schwartz, EmilyThis capstone explores the impact of heightened anxiety in children and adolescents in the post–COVID-19 era and examines nature-based therapy (NBT) as a complementary intervention to support student well-being. Drawing from recent research, this capstone highlights the prevalence and neurobiology of anxiety, the ways in which the pandemic intensified mental health challenges, and the potential of integrating natural environments into school counselling practice.Item The Role of Language in Multilingual Counselling(2025-11) Schweizer, ElizabethThis capstone is an exploration of the function of language within multilingual counselling relationships. Language serves as one of the primary modes of communication within talk therapy, rendering it an essential aspect to consider when counsellors and clients are multilingual. Furthermore, language functions within a sociocultural context and is embedded with layers of cultural nuance, while simultaneously being perceived and interpreted both externally and internally. To demonstrate how language operates differently across languages, I have chosen to contrast English and German concepts of anxiety and shame. The research questions under investigation are: Does language shape our experience and perception of emotion concepts, such as anxiety and shame? When comparing English and German concepts of anxiety and shame linguistically, what are the sociocultural impacts? How can therapists approach language in a way that supports effective communication and expression within the therapeutic relationship? In order to help facilitate deeper insight into the function(s) of language in the counselling context, I created the acronym LSTEN, which stands for L: Language, I: Intention, S: Somatic Approaches, T: Translation, E: Embodied Listening and N: Narrative. The findings in the capstone reveal that counsellors and clients can benefit and deepen the therapeutic relationship by exploring the function(s) of language.Item Insecure Attachment and Empathy Deficits in Adults with Childhood Trauma(2025-12-06) Marchand, JennaChildhood trauma, encompassing various adverse experiences such as abuse, neglect, and disrupted caregiving, has profound effects on emotion regulation, attachment security, and overall social functioning throughout life. This literature review aims to examine the relationships between childhood trauma and its impact on the development of empathy in adulthood. The findings indicate that individuals exposed to traumatic experiences during childhood often exhibit insecure attachment patterns, which hinder their ability to engage in empathic interactions. Specifically, insecure or disorganized attachment styles are shown to disrupt emotion regulation and perspective-taking abilities, which are critical components of empathy. The review describes effective interventions, including emotionally focused therapy (EFT) and attachment-based frameworks, which have demonstrated success in promoting emotional safety and repairing attachment disruptions.