Trainee Multicultural Case Conceptualization Ability and Couples Therapy

Abstract

Previous literature on the assessment of multicultural counseling competence has been concerned only with counselors' abilities when working with individual clients. We expanded this line of research by investigating trainees' multicultural case conceptualization ability in the context of working with couples. Despite the fact that trainees self-reported a high level of multicultural competency, trainees were largely inattentive to racial factors in their case conceptualization responses to vignettes involving both African American and European American clients presenting for couples therapy. On the whole, despite didactic, clinical, and extracurricular training in multiculturalism, marriage and family therapy trainees did not sufficiently incorporate cultural factors into their clinical case conceptualizations. We discuss implications for teaching, practice, and future research.

Who’s Multiculturally Competent? Everybody and Nobody: A Multimethod Examination

“…As noted previously, researchers have discussed the pitfalls of utilizing self-report measures of MCC (e.g., Constantine & Ladany, 2000;Lantz et al, 2018;Worthington & Dillon, 2011). Common measures of performance-based MCC are supervisor ratings, client ratings, observer ratings (Worthington, Soth-McNett, & Moreno, 2007), and performance on a multicultural case conceptualization ability task (e.g., Guzmán et al, 2013;Ladany et al, 1997;Schomburg & Prieto, 2011). Relatively few studies employ any of the performance-based measures, likely due to their methodologically complex and time-consuming nature.…”

“…We used the case conceptualization task in the present study to gain a more accurate representation of participants' MCC as observed through their conceptualization abilities by utilizing a single-participant (rather than dyadic or triadic) design and online data collection. Two recent, similar multimethod examinations were conducted in school counseling (Guzmán et al, 2013) and marriage and family therapy (Schomburg & Prieto, 2011). Schomburg and Prieto (2011) employed the Multicultural Case Conceptualization Ability (MCCA) task (Ladany et al, 1997), adapted for couples therapy, as well as the self-report Multicultural Counseling Knowledge and Awareness Scale (MCKAS; Ponterotto, Gretchen, Utsey, Rieger, & Austin, 2002) with a sample of marriage and family therapy and counseling psychology trainees.…”

“…Yet, numerous concerns exist with relying on self-report to indicate MCC. Self-report measures have been demonstrated to be discrepant from observer ratings (Cartwright et al, 2008) and client ratings (Constantine, 2001b), and either significantly but not substantially correlated (Schomburg & Prieto, 2011), or uncorrelated (e.g., Constantine & Ladany, 2000;Guzmán, Calfa, Van Horn Kerne, & McCarthy, 2013) with performance measures. Yet there is also research to the contrary, suggesting that self-report MCC is correlated with performance measures of MCC (e.g., Spanierman, Poteat, Wang, & Oh, 2008).…”

From Knowing to Doing: Guidelines for Socioculturally Attuned Family Therapy

“…Despite broad agreement that attunement to client's sociocultural experience is foundational to good practice (D'Aniello, Nguyen, & Piercy, ), therapists often fail to effectively address societal context, culture, and power (Schomburg & Prieto, ; Williams & Knudson‐Martin, ). We argue that there should be no disconnect between clinical excellence and practice that promotes cultural equity and social transformation (Almeida, Hernández‐Wolfe, & Tubbs, ; St. George & Wulff, ).…”

Therapists’ Assessments in Treating “Sex Addiction” and Their Relationship to Clients’ Gender, Relationship Status, and Exclusivity Status

“…Another limitation is due to the self‐report nature of the survey. Research typically shows a weak relationship between a person's perception of what they do and their actual behavior (Schomburg Schomburg & Preto, ). In this case, it is not possible to know if the therapists’ answers reflect what would actually occur in session with a given client.…”