Cultural Competence and Psychotherapy: Applying Anthropologically Informed Conceptions of Culture

Overview

Journal Psychotherapy (Chic)

Specialties Pharmacology
Psychology

Date 2011 Nov 30

PMID 22122131

Citations 23

Authors

Kimberly Lakes

Steven R Lopez

Linda C Garro

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The authors apply two contemporary notions of culture to advance the conceptual basis of cultural competence in psychotherapy: Kleinman's (1995) definition of culture as what is at stake in local, social worlds, and Mattingly and Lawlor's (2001) concept of shared narratives between practitioners and patients. The authors examine these cultural constructs within a clinical case of an immigrant family caring for a young boy with an autism-spectrum disorder. Their analysis suggests that the socially based model of culture and the concept of shared narratives have the potential to broaden and enrich the definition of cultural competence beyond its current emphasis on the presumed cultural differences of specific racial and ethnic minority groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

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