IS THE RUMERTIME PROCESS™ A VIABLE MULTISYSTEMIC CBT INTERVENTION? PERSPECTIVES FROM THE FIELD

Abstract

We live in an increasingly borderless world, in which changes in one part of the globe rapidly influence all other areas. Increased international migration, along with the accompanying movement of information, affects the political, economic and cultural spheres in distant countries. Along with benefits that include increased knowledge and greater educational and cultural opportunities come drawbacks at the systemic level, including adverse impacts to cultural practices and beliefs, family relationships and the social cohesiveness of communities. In particular, changes that occur in high-income countries are experienced in a variety of ways in low and medium income countries. One way is how people view themselves and their places in the world; individuals need to re-equip themselves with skills, particularly intra- and interpersonal skills, to be productive global citizens. Two of the many barriers to doing this in the under-resourced parts of the world are access to resources and shortage of trained individuals to deliver these scant interventions. We introduce the RUMERTIME Process™, a five-step psychosocial problem-solving strategy as a possible multisystemic cognitive behavioral therapy intervention. The results of our pilot case studies, conducted in various formats, settings, and with diverse socio-demographic, demonstrate the success of the task-sharing approach of the RUMERTIME Process™ in training laypeople to deliver these psychosocial skills using our framework.