Chapter 7 - Culturally Competent Psychotherapy

Abstract

Intercultural psychotherapy refers to therapy that is delivered to patients with ethnic or cultural backgrounds considerably different from that of the therapist. This chapter examines the various issues that need considerations in intercultural psychotherapy are examined. In this context, it takes a look at numerous specific issues in the clinical experience ofintercultural psychotherapy, such as the need for examining the congruence and incongruence of cultural backgrounds between therapist and patient; how to communicate with patients on verbal as well as nonverbal levels; how racism may affect interracial counseling; the problem of ethnic or cultural identification with the therapist; the management of cultural transference and counter transference; how to deal with a therapist's cultural rigidity or cultural blindness; and how to provide culture-fair,-matched,-sensitive,-relevant, or-reactive therapy. The chapter highlights that the therapist should examine cultural influence on the practice of psychotherapy actively. In order to carry out culture-relevant and-competent psychotherapy, there is a need to make adjustments at the technical, theoretical, and philosophical levels. When therapy is carried out with an individual patient with a format in which the treatment is focused primarily on the patient regarding intrapsychic conflict, personal psychological problems, or issues relating to relations with others, it is called individual psychotherapy. Based on its basic orientation, it is categorized and referred as supportive, analytic, cognitive–behavior therapy. The cultural considerations needed to carry out those individual therapies are also described in the chapter.