Kamaldeep Bhui is Professor of Cultural Psychiatry and Epidemiology and Director of the MSc course in transcultural mental healthcare at Barts and the London School of Medicine (Centre for Psychiatry, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Charterhouse Square, London EC1A 6BQ, UK. Email: k.s.bhui{at}qmul.ac.uk) and an honorary consultant psychiatrist in psychotherapy at Mile End Hospital, which is part of the East London and City Mental Health Trust. His interests include racism, cultural identity and religious factors in healing. Neil Morgan is a consultant psychiatrist and Head of Psychotherapy at the Department of Psychotherapy at Mile End Hospital. The Department receives referrals for people from diverse racial and cultural backgrounds in East London. The authors are developing models of improved practice and psychotherapy training processes that produce culturally capable practitioners.
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The ability to conduct psychotherapy effectively with racially and ethnically diverse populations is becoming increasingly relevant and is recognised to be important in addressing inequalities, which may also be patterned by differences in age, gender, class and sexual orientation. In this article we focus on race, culture and ethnicity. We will address issues surrounding gender and sexual diversity in a future article.
Regarding the evidence base, few evaluations of the effectiveness of psychotherapy have included adequate numbers of ethnic groups (Alvidrez et al, 1996), and few studies report on adaptations of proven interventions for use by culturally and linguistically unique populations.
In many National Health Service (NHS) psychotherapy departments in the UK large numbers of people are treated, often by a few highly trained senior therapists and by psychiatric, psychology, social work and psychotherapy trainees under supervision. As few training experiences include attention to racial and cultural implications for effective psychotherapy, experienced and trainee therapists alike share the need to develop and adapt their interventions for a society that is increasingly racially and culturally diverse.
Critiques of this subject area tend to emerge from experts in culture, health and illness, and include sociological and anthropological disciplines that use specific methodologies for generation of knowledge. These analyses are often theory rich and not easily accommodated into everyday practice, although they can highlight its limitations. Alternatively, psychotherapists practising in multi-ethnic areas immediately recognise the need for better knowledge and models of work with multi-ethnic populations, but it is difficult to ensure that adaptations of existing psychological interventions are effective. In the absence of both well-established guidelines and an adequate evidence base, we consider here some of the complex issues facing psychotherapists working in multicultural and multiracial populations. The article is aimed at practising psychotherapists rather than researchers in cultural psychiatry or medical anthropology.
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| Box 1 Definitions Culture Helman (2000) defines culture as a set of guidelines inherited by members of a particular society that tell them how to view the world, how to experience it emotionally and how to behave in relation to other people. Culture is transmitted by symbol, art, ritual and language. Ethnicity A community whose heritage offers its members important characteristics in common that make it distinct from other communities is said to have a shared ethnicity ethnicity is a boundary that distinguishes us from them. It includes an appraisal of appearance, subjective identification, cultural and religious affiliation, and social exclusion (Modood et al, 1997: p. 13). Race Legal usage: in the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 a racial group is a group of people defined by their race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins. Jews, Sikhs, Gypsies and Irish Travellers have been recognised by the courts as racial groups for the purpose of the Act (http://www.cre.gov.uk/duty/grr/introduction.html) Popular usage: in biology, the term race distinguishes the distinct populations (subspecies) of a species (including the human species). Many regard race as a social construct. Many think it has genetic basis. The most widely used human racial categories are based on visible traits (especially skin colour, facial features and hair texture), genes and self-identification. Concepts of race, as well as specific racial groupings, vary by culture and over time, and are often controversial, for scientific reasons as well as because of their impact on social identity and identity politics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race). Religion Religious and spiritual beliefs and practices are more common in some ethnic groups than in others. Indeed, some faith groups are defined as distinct not along cultural or ethnic lines but because of a reliance on religious and spiritual ways of living. Identity Identity has cultural, ethnic, religious as well as personal components. Cultural, religious and ethnic identity formation and expression are personal processes that include conscious and unconscious compromises between aspired, experienced and imposed identities. Such identities are challenged during the acculturation experience. Acculturation This refers to the gradual physical, biological, cultural and psychological changes that take place in individuals and groups when contact between two cultural groups takes place. There is pressure on newcomers to conform to and accommodate the dominant cultural lifestyle. Such pressure is handled differently by different individuals, and acculturation stress can create vulnerability to certain health problems as well as susceptibility to increase in psychological symptoms (Loshak, 2003). Berry (2004) defines four states of acculturation: integration (both the individuals original culture and the dominant culture are valued); separation (the individuals culture is valued and the dominant culture is devalued); assimilation (the dominant culture is valued but the individuals culture is devalued; marginalisation (both the individuals culture and the dominant culture are devalued). Universalism This is an approach to health and social care (in this article, to psychological treatments) that reflects the assumption that, despite specific cultural and historical contexts in which people live their lives, all interventions suit all cultural groups (one size fits all). Universalism assumes that assessments, and emergent recommendations and interventions, are universally effective and acceptable.
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However, in a diverse society, specific religious taboos and cultural values may prevent take up of psychological treatment, in favour of more understood or culturally congruent approaches. For example, prayer, rituals and the lay referral system may alleviate mental distress without resort to formal systems of healthcare (Kleinman, 1980). In non-Western cultures, there may not be the same emphasis on talk as a form of treatment, or on introspection, exploration or personal disclosure. Recovery may be expected following biomedical forms of treatment such as injection, medication or physical investigations. More directive instructions may be expected, and the absence of a clear duration for treatment and confidence in expected recovery may puzzle those who expect more paternalistic styles of healthcare. Furthermore, communication between therapist and patient may be affected by different previous experiences of help-seeking and carers, by different notions of selfhood and intimacy, and by culturally determined norms of what therapists, doctors, nurses or social worker are expected to do.
Although these issues are most likely to arise in diverse cultural settings with cultural differences between therapist and patient, they may well also become evident where therapist and patient are from the same ethnic group but belong to different subcultural groups.
In the absence of understanding of each others expectations, miscommunication can arise and this will affect the patienttherapist relationship. The therapist may not understand why a patient does not adhere to treatment, or perhaps why family decisions and views are as important in healthcare uptake as the decisions of the patient. The patient may end up rejecting the therapist if they feel that the therapist is not able to understand or sustain a thoughtful consideration of the role of culture, race and ethnicity in the recovery process. Akhtar (2006) suggests that the immigrant analyst, and by our inference any therapist, must:
We propose that these issues are pertinent irrespective of the ethnic match between therapist and patient, or the ethnic origin of the therapist.
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Tseng (1999) classifies therapies around the world into three types: the culturally embedded (e.g. Zar possession and trance states); those influenced by the culture (e.g. Morita and naikan therapies); and those based on cultural elements found in a mainstream model (e.g. CBT).
Many societies practise indigenous therapies, and migrants and ethnic groups often resort to these more familiar forms of healing. Psychotherapies that are unique to specific societies make use of the cultural fabric of that society, with its associated beliefs and aspirations and ways of seeing the world. Mobilising these cultural beliefs can lead to recovery.
Knowledge of culturally embedded or influenced therapies of non-Western origin may be of value in Western settings, where expectations of such therapies may arise among ethnic groups and recent migrants. Furthermore, these therapies include processes of emotional transformation that may not be seen as strictly psychological but may include psychological elements.
In some cases it will be necessary to re-examine the patients explanatory model of their problems and their previous help-seeking before therapy can begin. The explicit rationale for psychotherapy may need explanation. Compromise and consensus will be required to promote engagement and to nurture a treatment alliance. Intercultural therapies already specifically acknowledge this, and include a mutually respectful exploration of the therapy and of perceived problems and solutions, so that a framework is found within which the therapist and patient can work. With such an approach, psychotherapeutic models such as CBT, psychodynamic approaches and family therapies have the potential to be used effectively across cultures.
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Another example of a potential cross-cultural limitation of Western therapeutic theory is its appropriation of the classical Oedipus myth. This finds expression and use in therapeutic processes but is a culturally influenced theory (Bhugra & Bhui, 2002). The parentchild incest taboo, found in all cultures, institutes the distinction between gender, generations and contact with the external world. In psychoanalytic terms this refers to the triadic Oedipal constellation, but the figures of the triad may vary depending on the culture. For example, in the Indian setting the mothers brother or another father figure may be the rival with whom Oedipal conflicts are resolved; in a matriarchal society this figure may even be female.
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After a lengthier and yet, compared with work with an English speaker, a less revealing process, the therapist may still be faced with theoretical and philosophical uncertainties. Each theoretical concept will need more weighing up and some therapies, for example psychodynamic work, may be impossible, as the necessary level of intimacy may not be easily achieved unless years are dedicated to the task. Even cognitivebehavioural treatments may be undermined if homework and task completion are not understood, or if therapeutic services are seen as part of a medical review process. This is a not uncommon scenario with refugees and asylum seekers, who often find the process of CBT puzzling or anxiety-promoting.
Interpreters may have their own expectations of the situation and understanding of emotional states. They also have different levels of linguistic proficiency. The sensitive timing in the delivery of psychotherapeutic interpretations linking past and present, and patients disclosure of intimate traumas and precious aspects of self, may all be jeopardised if the interpreter and the therapist are not attuned. Both need to be experienced and perceptive of the quality of their working relationship and their limitations as a professional dyad working with a patient.
Emotional communications across racial and cultural groups are complex and subject to distortion (Bhui & Bhugra, 2004). Involving a third person in this communicative process may further distort knowledge about the other or, given the limited time available for therapy, leave certain possibilities unexplored. One solution is to ensure that bilingual therapists are recruited and trained to meet the needs of the local population, but this does not overcome the failure of theory or skills in negotiating meanings attached to the therapeutic process.
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Just as patients often seek out therapists of the same gender or of a specific age group they may also seek out therapists they perceive to be more able or confident. These may be from a different ethnic group, but perhaps also from their own ethnic group. Thomas (1992) describes these sentiments as pre-transference phenomena fuelled by fantasy, myth and internal representations of the other, and by popular portrayals of ethnic groups in the social environment. Morgan (1998) described how a Black patient sought out a White therapist and (the patient) discovered her own internalised racism and denigration of Blackness. A White therapist was equated with a better therapist.
Issues of confidentiality can also cause patients to seek therapists who are outside of their cultural group. Yet therapists who do not speak the primary language of the patient may not be able to communicate effectively, or conceptualise the patients distress in words that are meaningful to the patient.
Some patients experience encounters with people from other ethnic groups as traumatic, or as experiences that promote anxiety, fear and primitive impulses that together characterise the dynamics of racial thinking.
Some religious minorities feel that therapy with a non-religious therapist or with a therapist from a different religious group would pose insurmountable obstacles (Lowenthal, 1999).
Language apart, it may not be the ethnic or racial group of the therapist that is crucial. Carter (1995) asserts that the identity status of the therapist and the patient, in terms of the extent of exploration of their own cultural identity, determines the basis of a match or mismatch in therapy. He proposes five stages in the development of a mature cultural identity: separated, pre-encounter, encounter, exploration and closure, in which an identity is finally embraced. Within this process a key discovery that a White therapist has to make is that of the role of White privilege. Carter also identified key skills required by therapists practising racially inclusive therapy, and these are listed in Box 2
.
Box 2 Key requirements for racially inclusive psychotherapy
(after Carter, 1995)
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In Box 3
we make recommendations to support culturally capable practice. These are aimed at developing basic competencies to address some of the very challenging dilemmas that therapists encounter in the consulting room. However, culture, race and ethnicity may be misunderstood to refer to homogeneous groups. Although these recommendations will help to engage patients, it must be remembered that ethnic and racial groups can differ in many other ways, influenced by age, gender, class, sexual orientation, preferred language and degree of integration into British society.
| Box 3 Recommendations for culturally capable practice in psychotherapy Therapists should:
(adapted from Cardemil & Battle, 2003)
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The elements of good practice listed in Box 3
are often those that are presumed to be helpful; for example, they may be the factors that mediate benefit when ethnic matching is used. An important component of working in multiracial, multi-ethnic and multicultural populations is noticing and managing the racial transference. This may include racial material acting as a vehicle for the expression of transference defence, or drive derivatives or object ties (see Moodley & Palmer, 2006). Race-based transference may also be an expression of intrapsychic conflict, and involve splitting and projective defences; racial material may reveal a persons own experience of racism, and their racial identity as internalised representations of past and present relationships. Irrespective of modality of therapy, such processes should be identified and managed in the service of recovery.
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| Box 4 Further reading Cardemil, E. V. & Battle, C. L. (2003) Guess whos coming to therapy? Getting comfortable with conversations about race and ethnicity in psychotherapy. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 34, 278286. Darling, L. (2004) Psychoanalytically informed work with interpreters. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, 18, 255267. Inayat, Q. (2005) Psychotherapy in a multi-ethnic society. Psychotherapist, 26, 7. Layard, R. (2006) The case for psychological treatment centres. BMJ, 332, 10301032. doi:10.1136/bmj.332. 7548.1030. Neki, J. S. (1975) Guru-chela relationship: the possibility of a therapeutic paradigm. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 43, 755766. Patel, N., Bennett, E., Dennis, M., et al(2000) Clinical Psychology, Race, and Culture: A Training Manual. British Psychological Society Books. Prince, R. (1980) Variations in psychotherapy procedures. In Handbook of Cross Cultural Psychopathology (eds T. C. Triandis & J. G. Draguns), vol 6. Allyn & Bacon. Tesone, J. E. (1996) Multi-lingualism, word-presentations, thing-presentations and psychic reality. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77, 871881. Wheeler, S. (2006) Difference and Diversity in Counselling: Contemporary Psychodynamic Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan.
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We do not propose major technical adaptations of interventions, but suggest that an essential pre-competency is to notice the expression of culture and race in therapeutic encounters, and to incorporate these expressions within therapeutic processes and thinking, while taking notice of therapeutic structures that may hinder recovery.
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