Training to Think Culturally: A Multidimensional Comparative Framework

Abstract

A multidimensional, comparative training framework is designed to integrate culture with all aspects of family therapy. Culture is viewed as occurring in multiple contexts that create common "cultural borderlands" as well as diversity; unpredictability and possibility, as well as regularity and constraint. The framework proposes a search for basic parameters to help therapists think comparatively and pluralistically about families' cultural configurations and meanings. Further, the parameters chosen--ecological context, migration/acculturation, organization, and life cycle--are used to heighten therapists' awareness about the "situated knowledge" of their own professional and personal culture. This approach recognizes the potential complexity of both the family's and the therapist's cultural location or ecological niche, and encourages curiosity in the therapeutic conversation rather than reliance on potentially stereotyping, ethnic-focused information.

Resilience in Families in Which a Parent has Died

“…Belief systems include values, convictions, attitudes, biases, and assumptions, which combine to form a set of basic premises that trigger emotional responses, inform decisions, and guide actions. Families develop shared belief systems that are connected to cultural values and influenced by their position and experiences in the social world over time (Falicov, 1995). Such shared belief systems organize experience to enable family members to make sense of crisis situations.…”

Learning disabilities and ethnicity: achieving cultural competence

“…Whether voluntary or forced, it is a traumatic life event. It is the uprooting of meaning, with disruption of life-long attachments and external stability (Falicov, 1995). Family disruption continues through separations and reunions, and parents who raise their children in a culture that differs from their own often feel disempowered.…”

One therapist, four cultures: working with families in Greater China

“…Therefore, what is put to task is not only the therapist's sensitivity to ethnical and cultural differences, but also her awareness of the interpersonal process which is embedded in multiple cultural dimensions. Falicov (1995) suggested the importance of simultaneously addressing universals, idiosyncratic and culture-specific dimensions for both the culture of the family and the culture of the therapist. When Sal Minuchin came to teach in Hong Kong in 1996 and 1998, I was in a good position as his co-therapist to witness how a seasoned therapist incorporated these dimensions into his therapeutic work within a foreign culture.…”

“…Since the publication of Ethnicity and Family Therapy (McGoldrick et al, 1996), interest in ethnicity and cultural diversity such as in Irish (McGoldrick, 1982), Afro-American (Boyd-Franklin et al, 1995), Latino (Falicov, 1995) and other cultures has inspired family therapists to understand the way ethnicity and culture shape family relationships and self-development. There is a growing sense that it is important for therapists to join the family with some regard for its ethnic map.…”

“…It became clear to me that even though I belong to the same ethnic group, as a therapist I am always dealing with subcultures. If therapy is seen as an encounter between the therapist's and the family's cultural and personal constructions (Falicov, 1995), one has to address the therapist's own cultural and personal self and how it merges with that of the family's.…”