Group Psychotherapy in Specialty Clinics for Substance Use Disorder Treatment: The Challenge of Ethnoracially Diverse Clients

Abstract

Minimal research has explored how clinicians address race and ethnicity considerations in the context of group psychotherapy within substance use disorder (SUD) specialty treatment settings. This article is an exploratory qualitative study in an effort to narrow this gap, using data from semi-structured interviews with 13 group clinicians at three outpatient SUD specialty clinics in the United States. Results are drawn from the portion of coded material pertaining to ethnoracial considerations. A predominant theme from the interviews was the importance of individualized care in terms of “meeting clients where they are at.” However, minimal attention appears to have been given to addressing clients’ demographic diversity. Overall, ethnoracial considerations were minimally addressed in groups, with clinicians framing such primarily in terms of “cultural” factors relevant to clinics’ treatment philosophies. Moreover, limited attention was reportedly given to acknowledgment of social inequities faced by ethnoracial minority clients (e.g., racial discrimination), even though a few clinicians reported concern that minority clients were less engaged in treatment. Clinical implications of these findings and recommendations for future research are discussed.

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