Black Issues in the Therapeutic Process


Book Description

This book examines issues that are specific to counselling people of African and Caribbean heritage. Exploring the hurt of racism and inherited effects of slavery, it provides 'therapeutic tasks' to offer practical advice for all students, trainees and practitioners.




Black Issues in the Therapeutic Process


Book Description

The impact of slavery and colonialism still reverberates in black and ethnic minority communities, but counsellors are often given little training on how to respond effectively to the profound effects on their clients. Inspired by the author's own research, this book explores creatively how the therapeutic relationship with people of African or Caribbean heritage can better take account of such deep-seated intercultural issues. Offering real-life stories, examples and poetry extracts, the author reflects on students' and practitioners' understanding of their own connections with black issues and draws on layers of experience to give practical advice. Filled with thoughtful and supportive guidance, the book: - Provides direct techniques to assist empathic therapeutic work with the hurt of racism. - Explores questions that have been asked by practising and trainee therapists. - Develops readers' understanding of key issues in a global and historical context. - Encourages practitioners to broaden their experience of working with black issues. This unique and engaging book offers invaluable insight for all students, counsellors and health care professionals who are seeking better understanding in their work with people of black African/Caribbean origin.




The International Handbook of Black Community Mental Health


Book Description

This international handbook addresses classic mental health issues, as well as controversial subjects regarding inequalities and stereotypes in access to services, and misdiagnoses. It addresses the everyday racism faced by Black people within mental health practice.




Psychotherapy with African American Women


Book Description

Focusing on the breadth of issues that affect psychotherapy with African American women, this unique volume is designed to help clinicians develop a broader understanding of what is useful and what is problematic when applying psychodynamic concepts to their clients. From an array of seasoned clinicians, chapters present innovative and creative reformulations of theory and technique that build upon and challenge existing models. Issues addressed include the psychological dilemmas confronting diverse African American women as they negotiate a society that is hostile to them on multiple levels; how ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation and other differences come into play within the therapeutic dyad; and approaches to unraveling the complex interplay of sociopolitical, intrapsychic, and interpersonal concerns in treatment. Filled with illustrative clinical material and pointers for practice, the volume will enhance the cultural competence of mental heath practitioners and students across a range of disciplines.




Black Families in Therapy


Book Description

This pioneering work is the most comprehensive book on Black families in therapy to appear in the clinical literature. It is unprecedented in its attention to the cultural diversity among Black families, its emphasis on the utilization of cultural strengths in therapy, and on its application of the concept of clinical empowerment. Dr. Boyd-Franklin also gives thoughtful attention to the therapist's use of self and the subtleties which are often involved in the treatment process. Highlighting the diversity among Black Afro-American families, the author's first five chapters explore a number of cultural issues including racism, racial identification, and skin color; extended family patterns and informal adoptions; role flexibility and boundary confusion; religion and spirituality. Numerous case examples provide rich illustrations of these topics. The latter part of the book further explores socioeconomic differences with specific chapters on poor inner-city, single-parent, and middle-class Black families. An important contribution of this work is its elaboration of the Multisystems Model which allows family therapists to intervene with Black families at multiple levels including the individual, the family, the extended family, church and community networks, and the social service system. Dr. Boyd-Franklin's clear straightforward presentation of this model will allow the practicing therapist to apply it to even the most complex treatment realities. In addition, this Multisystems Model has applicability to many other ethnic groups and treatment situations. For training programs that include ethnicity, culture, and the treatment of Black families in their curriculum, this book provides a comprehensive syllabus. It is essential reading for family therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, medical practitioners, pastoral counselors, educators, and public agency administrators. For students and practitioners in these fields it provides a scholarly, incisive analysis that sets a standard for ethnicity studies in the therapeutic arena.




Managing Microaggressions


Book Description

Microaggressions have been identified as a common and troubling cause of low retention and poor psychotherapy outcomes for people of color. All therapists want and intend to be helpful to their clients, but many unknowingly committing microaggressions due to unconscious biases and misconceptions about people from ethnic and racial minority groups. Managing Microaggressions is intended for mental health clinicians who want to be more effective in their use of evidence-based practices with people of color. Many well-intentioned clinicians lack the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively engage those who are ethnoracially different. This book discusses the theoretical basis of the problem (microaggressions), the cognitive-behavioral mechanisms by which the problem is maintained, and how to remedy the problem using CBT principles, with a focus on the role of the therapist. Not only will readers learn how to avoid offending or harming their clients, they will also be better equipped to help clients navigate microaggressions they encounter in their daily lives. Managing Microaggressions will endow clinicians with a clear understanding of these behaviors and the errors that underpin them, leading to more successful therapy.




Unequal Treatment


Book Description

Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received. In Unequal Treatment, a panel of experts documents this evidence and explores how persons of color experience the health care environment. The book examines how disparities in treatment may arise in health care systems and looks at aspects of the clinical encounter that may contribute to such disparities. Patients' and providers' attitudes, expectations, and behavior are analyzed. How to intervene? Unequal Treatment offers recommendations for improvements in medical care financing, allocation of care, availability of language translation, community-based care, and other arenas. The committee highlights the potential of cross-cultural education to improve provider-patient communication and offers a detailed look at how to integrate cross-cultural learning within the health professions. The book concludes with recommendations for data collection and research initiatives. Unequal Treatment will be vitally important to health care policymakers, administrators, providers, educators, and students as well as advocates for people of color.




Race, Culture and Counselling


Book Description

Can therapy involving a therapist and client from differing cultural, ethnic and racial origins work? What are the main barriers to this relationship working well? What knowledge, skill and attitudes are required by therapists to enhance their work with “different” clients? Therapists are inevitably affected by their own backgrounds, experiences and prejudices, which may manifest negatively within therapeutic relationships with clients of different cultural, racial and ethnic backgrounds to their own. This book strives to explore these areas of challenge to successful therapy and to raise awareness of the many facets that may impact upon the relationship. This substantially revised edition builds upon the foundations laid down in the first edition (which addressed, amongst other subjects, issues of race and power, cultures and their impact upon communication, and a review of the dominant theoretical discourses influencing counselling and psychotherapy and how these might impact upon mixed identity therapeutic relationships,) and includes the following additions: New chapters by black and white writers working within British, American and Canadian contexts Updated information on recent changes and challenges in the field New approaches to the issues of whiteness and power, multiple identities and identity development Race, Culture and Counselling provides key reading for students, therapists, supervisors and teachers of therapists as well as students and professionals in allied professions such as social work, nursing, medicine and teaching. Contributors: Courtland Lee; Roy Moodley; Gill Tuckwell; Val Watson




The Cambridge Handbook of Applied Psychological Ethics


Book Description

The Cambridge Handbook of Applied Psychological Ethics is a valuable resource for psychologists and graduate students hoping to further develop their ethical decision making beyond more introductory ethics texts. The book offers real-world ethical vignettes and considerations. Chapters cover a wide range of practice settings, populations, and topics, and are written by scholars in these settings. Chapters focus on the application of ethics to the ethical dilemmas in which mental health and other psychology professionals sometimes find themselves. Each chapter introduces a setting and gives readers a brief understanding of some of the potential ethical issues at hand, before delving deeper into the multiple ethical issues that must be addressed and the ethical principles and standards involved. No other book on the market captures the breadth of ethical issues found in daily practice and focuses entirely on applied ethics in psychology.




Cultural Competence in Applied Psychology


Book Description

The first volume of its kind, this provocative book evaluates the construct of cultural competence from multiple perspectives. At the intersection of diverse disciplines and domains, contributors argue for greater clarity in understanding the cultural competence construct, a deeper level of analysis as to its multifaceted components, and call for concrete practical objectives and science-based means of measurement. Serious, nuanced discussion addresses challenges, strengths, and limitations of current cultural competence practice in terms of sociocultural concepts (e.g., race, ethnicity) and practical concepts (e.g., sensitivity in the therapeutic relationship, treatment efficacy). In addition, contributors identify future directions for research, training, and practice with the potential to spur the further evolution of this clinically important construct. This timely book: Critiques the cultural competence construct and its evaluation as it is currently disseminated within applied psychology. Compares and contrasts how cultural competence is defined within clinical, school, and counseling psychology. Analyzes difficulties and challenges in understanding the cultural competence construct as evaluated through the lens of closely related fields outside of applied psychology. Spotlights complexities in cultural competence issues pertaining to specific populations. Sets out implications for education and training, offering a detailed outline for an ideal college course in cultural competence With this level of reasoning and rigor, Cultural Competence in Applied Psychology is sure to stimulate long-overdue dialogue and debate among professionals across a wide variety of fields, such as clinical psychology, social work, child and social psychology, psychotherapy, school psychology, and counseling.