How do graduate student therapists incorporate diversity factors in case conceptualization?

Abstract

Researchers interviewed 17 psychotherapists in training in an analogue study of psychotherapists' use of broadly defined diversity factors in conceptualizing clients and cases. Each therapist watched two 5-minute staged videotapes of clients who varied along dimensions of race and ethnicity, age, and gender. Each acting client described problems in an initial psychotherapy interview, and then participant therapists responded to questions. Participants demonstrated varying levels of multicultural competence. Many exhibited knowledge in the areas of culture-specific values, and family and gender roles; awareness of their own cultural background and its effects on the therapeutic relationship; and skills in treatment planning, including assessment of levels of acculturation and culturally appropriate treatment methods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).