ABSTRACT

This chapter presents a model of identity development that acknowledges coincidental identity transformational processes involving minority groups and utilize the processes to help explain individual differences within minority groups. The Minority Identity Development (MID) model propose is not presented as a comprehensive theory of personality development, but rather as a schema to help counselors understand minority client attitudes and behaviors within existing personality theories. Minority individuals in the stage of development are distinguished by their unequivocal preference for dominant cultural values over those of their own culture. In the stage of development, the minority individual experiences feelings of discontent and discomfort with group views rigidly held in the Resistance and Immersion stage, and diverts attention to notions of greater individual autonomy. Discussion of the MID model's implications for counseling is admittedly highly speculative at the point, and the model itself requires empirical verification before more definitive inferences are drawn.