Book Description

"Culture is the proverbial elephant sitting in the middle of one's consulting room. If one ignores this elephant, he or she runs the risk of collision. Notably, if one approaches culture from a reductionistic perspective, he or she may reenact the fable of the blind men touching different parts of the elephant and misidentifying the animal. In other words, the clinician ends up misinterpreting the effects of culture on clinical practice. Instead, when one recognizes the role of culture, he or she develops an approach to clinical care that examines the impact of context on clients, ourselves, and the world. My intention in writing this book is to help clinicians increase their clinical cultural competence. Although there are numerous resources on cultural competence, they tend to emphasize the training of graduate students as opposed to the continuing education of practicing clinicians (Rogers-Sirin, 2008). I intend for this book to bridge this gap by offering resources to graduate students, clinicians in training, novice therapists, and seasoned practitioners alike. To facilitate the journey toward cultural competence, I propose the adoption of a multicultural care perspective. This approach involves enhancing understanding of clients' contexts, developing a multicultural therapeutic relationship, and adapting the healing approach to clients' needs. As a clinician, you already have most of what you need to endorse a multicultural care approach. You can become a multicultural caring clinician without abandoning your theoretical orientation. At the core of multicultural care is a desire to work with multicultural clients. Although all people have cultures, I use the term multicultural individuals to refer to culturally different individuals and/or people of color"--Introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).