![]() ![]() The emphasis in the working alliance on agreement is also crucial here, so that the client feels understood. We believe that it is also important to explore the client’s perspective on the nature of therapy and the therapeutic relationship (through immediacy, for example) and to use this understanding to assess and meet the needs and expectations that the client brings to therapy. This is crucial to the relationship in multicultural therapy, and it may take a special sensitivity and patience on the part of the therapist for trust and mutual respect to develop with some clients. In the working alliance, there is an emphasis on building trust, and, to an extent, on the importance of there being some level of a bond between the client and therapist. However, at times, modifications in approach and timing may be necessary in order for the relationship to develop. For competent therapists, establishing an effective relationship in multicultural psychotherapy may not require significant changes from what they normally do successfully with other clients. In the discussion, it was noted that it is important to treat each client as an individual thus, the therapist’s competence in assessment and intervention and ability to approach and engage clients will be key in establishing a relationship. The first question raised at the roundtable discussion was how one establishes therapeutic trust and rapport with an individual who is culturally different. Finally, although the relationship in multicultural therapy could be conceived of and defined from other theoretical perspectives, our focus in the current paper is to make connections with what we considered to be the traditional perspectives of the relationship. ![]() Third, we acknowledge the critical importance of therapists’ ongoing commitment to developing knowledge and awareness of their identities and how they might be perceived by clients who are from various cultural backgrounds. ![]() We also recognize that for some dyads in therapy, race, ethnicity, culture, and other human diversity characteristics and experiences will be more relevant and more likely to impact the therapeutic relationship and, thus, the core of the work (e.g., a dyad in which the therapist is Euro-American and the client is African-American or dyads in which race relations and racism are central topics of discussion). Second, we recognize that all people are socialized, cultural beings, so therapeutic interactions are inherently multicultural. First we use the terms multicultural, diverse, and minority inclusively as described above. We have organized the content below in terms of the questions that were raised and discussed with the participants.Ī few caveats. This paper is a continuation of a fruitful round-table discussion that the authors held at a recent APA conference. We also discuss important therapist factors, such as knowledge, attitudes, and skills that foster the development and strengthening of the relationship. In this brief paper we intend to highlight how the client-therapist relationship is particularly important in multicultural therapy and how each of these three dimensions of the relationship is relevant to it. One prominent way of conceptualizing the therapy relationship is in terms of a working alliance (i.e., agreement on goals and tasks, and an emotional bond), a real relationship (i.e., perceptions that befit the other as a person and an ability to be genuine), and the configuration of transference/ countertransference (i.e., distortions, displacements from the past brought into the relationship Gelso & Hayes, 1998). This may be particularly true for those of who work with diverse clients, defined here as persons who identify or are identified by others as different from the prevailing dominant culture on the basis of race, ethnicity, culture, and/or other human diversity characteristics. While we know that therapists’ overall competence and client factors, such as motivation, are relevant and important to treatment, the client-therapist relationship is considered essential to effective treatment, at least in most therapies (Norcross & Lambert, 2011). The most consistent and robust predictor of outcome in psychotherapy is the quality of the client-therapist relationship (Lambert, 2013). ![]()
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