Cross-cultural Responsiveness & Systemic Therapy ― Personal & Clinical Narratives

This progressive volume takes a nuanced approach to understanding systemic therapies with diverse client populations, leading to culturally responsive therapy. Synthesizing diverse streams of psychology, philosophy, and social theory, chapters focus on cutting-edge issues in couple and family therapy including social justice, power, and privilege in therapy, the role of evidence-based practices, and integrative approaches to couple and family therapy. Each contributor is either a recent immigrant to the U.S. or a person of color, bringing unique personal lenses and experiences to the exploration of the topics. And coverage also makes clear what white therapists need to learn—and unlearn—before they can work responsively with clients of color.

 

Updating familiar takes on cultural competence with both local and global implications, Cross-Cultural Responsiveness and Systemic Therapy describes numerous opportunities for and challenges to couple and family therapy, as well as cross-disciplinary opportunities for incorporating social justice and cultural responsiveness in training and supervision of couple and family therapists.

Shruti Singh Poulsen is an Associate Professor in the Counseling Program at the University of Colorado Denver. She teaches and supervises Master’s level students primarily in the couple and family therapy track. She has been clinically active in couple and family therapy and supervision for over 20 years. She received her doctorate from the MFT Program at Purdue University in 2003. She has been faculty at the University of Colorado Denver for over seven years. At CU Denver, she has taught Family Therapy Theories, Family Therapy Techniques, Counseling Couples, Introduction to Sex Therapy, Internship, and Practicum; most recently she taught an undergraduate course (Skills for Helping Professions) in Human Development & Family Relations, a new undergraduate program in her school. Her research, teaching and service all focus on areas of multiculturalism; specifically access to good mental health care to diverse populations, and training culturally responsive and competent therapists and counselors. She is also interested in empirically based treatments and their utility with diverse client populations; to this effort, she has obtained advanced training in EFT, Gottman Level I training, and training in IBCT. The majority of her scholarly work (publications & presentations) focuses on clinical work with diverse client populations with specific focus on areas such as immigration, interracial and diverse couples, cultural implications for training and supervision. 

Robert Allan is an Assistant Professor in the Counseling Program at the University of Colorado Denver. He teaches and supervises Master’s level students primarily in the couple and family therapy track. He came to working with people more directly in therapy after twenty years of community-based development work and developed a keen understanding of the impact of various stressors and community factors that can affect our lives. He has been helping couples, individuals and families improve their most important relationships, health, and well-being for over 25 years now. As his clinical practice evolved, he was drawn to systemic approaches to working with people. This was a natural evolution from his community work where they drew on a range of health promotion and population health models for working with health challenges. He received a Master’s in counseling from Acadia University, an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. from Dalhousie University (Canada), and did a post-grad route to become an MFT and approved AAMFT supervisor.