Being the Only One: Finding Connection through the Shared Experience of “Otherness”

ABSTRACT

There is a noticeable paucity of clinical resources that help clinicians of color to name and navigate the multitude of challenges in working through racial, cultural, and power differences in psychotherapy with White clients. African American therapists rarely receive adequate preparation for clinical practice in identifying, addressing, and working through transference and countertransference reactions in racially mixed dyads. The author highlights the challenges she faced early in her career with addressing racial and sociopolitical differences as an African American female clinical social worker providing individual psychotherapy to her older White male client whose traumatic experience focused on racial issues.     

从跨文化交际的角度分析《我爱比尔》

王安忆的中篇小说《我爱比尔》为我们提供了一个跨文化交际的读本。跨文化交际的模式分为双边跨文化交际和单边跨文化交际。小说中几个主人公之间的关系可以通过这两个交际模式进行分析,读者可以更好地理解中西方文化价值观念的差异,以及其对人的行为产生的影响。最后,通过小说的象征意义,指出跨文化交际中存在的问题,提出如何成功地进行跨文化交际的方法。     

跨文化交际中的文化创新

多元化社会带来了多种文化的接触与冲突。依据巴克金的"自我和他人的关系"理论,交际者在跨文化交际中对文化要进行创造性的理解,通过加强接触和对话,不断调整和充实原有文化,以文化创新解决跨文化交际中的冲突。     

Threads across the world: sewing resilience into the fabric of children’s lives

Strengthening the ecological resilience factors in the lives of children that have been abused can help them to navigate the healing process. It is through group work that children can share their “resilience wisdom” with one another as a healing community. There is a dearth of research on cross-cultural resilience programs for children who have been abused. This article explores a group work program that was conducted for one year in Bolivia and Australia. The results from each group reveal the similarities and the differences in outcomes between children from different cultural backgrounds that participated in a resilience group work program.     

How to use the vignette technique in cross-cultural social work research

The vignette technique was used in a cross-cultural comparative study of the delivery of personal social services in the United Kingdom and Sweden. In this article we discuss the major premises of using the vignette technique in cross-cultural comparative social research. In total, 247 vignettes were collected, 165 in Örebro. Sweden and 82 in the United Kingdom (73 in Leicester, England and 9 in the rural areas of Bangor, Wales). The vignettes were filled in by social workers working in the sector of child and family care. Since this technique is seldom used in cross-cultural comparative studies, it was necessary to develop a model for interpreting cross-cultural data. In this article we consider methodological and practical aspects of the method adapted for cross-cultural social work research. A preliminary survey of our empirical data demonstrates the usefulness of such a model in understanding cross-cultural data. However, the empirical data will be presented in a later article.     

Close encounters: Exclusion and marginalization as an intersubjective experience

The following paper will review current writings in intersubjective literature in order to examine how the issues of race and ethnicity color the therapeutic encounter in relation to paradigms of power and authority, transference, and countertransference and the “ethnic third.” It will then use two case vignettes to illustrate that therapists and clients coming from different cultural and ethnic groups can find ways to bridge their differences around race and culture through mutual experiences of exclusion and marginalization. The vignettes will illustrate some of the intersubjective interplays that are possible through the use of cultural rituals and symbols, both in order to form an empathie connection and in order to examine how race and culture shape the therapeutic relationship.     

Illuminating the Phenomenological Challenges of Cross-Cultural Supervision

ABSTRACT

The authors discuss transference enactments that occur during cross-cultural supervision. Previous research has shown that few mental health professionals willingly talk about race during supervision and that White supervisees experience significant difficulty when directly engaged in discussions about race. They introduce a new phenomenon, “stereotypical” transference enactments, as a means for understanding the countertransference Black female clinical supervisors experience during clinical supervision of White supervisees. The findings indicated that effective cross-cultural supervision should address the intersectionality of race and gender to enhance the development of multicultural clinical skills. The clinical and educational challenges are discussed by using two case vignettes.     

SPECIAL ISSUE： GLOBALIZATION AND CONTEMPORARY CHINESE CULTURAL CONSTRUCTION：Chinese culture： self-awareness and self-confidence

所谓文化力,就是文化生命力所在,亦即文化不是作为客体（对象）方式存在,而足作为上体方式存在。我们需要新的文化自觉和新的文化自信。全球化有两方面：一是国际化,二是世界化。全球化的这种双重性决定了开发利用国际文化资源重塑中国文化和开发利用中国文化资源重塑世界文化的双重性任务。同时,全球化的这种双重性还决定了跨文化的双重性。中国应对全球化的文化发展战略的根据就在于此。     

影视中的跨文化传播

影视既是现代化的大众传播媒介,又是具有巨大影响力的大众艺术,它已经成为我们时代的重要文化现象,是影响亿万人精神文化生活的重要艺术。其中,译制片是人类跨文化传播在现代社会的集中表现,是跨文化传播的结晶。     

＂Things Become＂ and ＂Things Becoming＂： Tradition and Cross-cultural Systems

从宇宙观到认识论的各种思维方式到老百姓日常生活各方面自在和潜在的指导原则,就是传统。传统包含两个层次：“文化传统”与“传统文化”。中国的古籍就是中国文化的遗存,构成中国“传统文化”的重要组成部分。长期积累下来的解读和研究构成了中国“文化传统”的不断增长的谱系。这个“过程”因不同主体对不同时代的典籍和事物的不同解读和诠释而各异。这个“过程”所形成的传统也就始终处于不断变化之中。跨文化对话中的传统特别是“建构性”后现代思潮的兴起,强调“有机整体的系统观念”,抵制全球文化的单极性和同质性,为不同文化的平等共生提供理论根据,争取多元文化在全球的胜利。在世界进入多元多变的时代,研究传统的变异性和持续性,研究传统在跨文化对话中的发展,将使传统成为一种积极力量,推动人类精神世界的创新,推动人类走向更合理、更美好的社会。     

Interpreting the Countertransference Erection

Abstract

This essay examines the interrelationship between internal experience of therapists and that of their clients in the conduct of psychotherapy. The position taken is that of relational theory, and clinical case material is used to illustrate the discussion.     

Therapist Effects on Disparities Experienced by Minorities Receiving Services for Mental Illness

OBJECTIVES: The authors examine if some of the reason clients from racial and ethnic minority groups experience outcome disparities is explained by their therapists. METHOD: Data from 98 clients (19% minority) and 14 therapists at two community mental health agencies where clients from racial and ethnic minority groups were experiencing outcome disparities were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling with treatment outcomes at Level 1, client factors at Level 2, and therapists at Level 3. RESULTS: There were substantial therapist effects that moderated the relationship between clients' race and treatment outcomes (outcome disparities). Therapists accounted for 28.7% of the variability in outcome disparities. CONCLUSIONS: Therapists are linked to outcome disparities and appear to play a substantial role in why disparities occur.     

To disclose or not to disclose: Political conflicts in the countertransference

Self‐disclosure is a frequent topic in the relational psychotherapy literature. However, there are few psychoanalytic writings or empirical studies that concern self‐disclosure in the context of cross‐cultural treatment; specifically treatment between Israeli therapists and Palestinian clients. This particular subject broadens the investigation of cross‐cultural treatment beyond race and color into the domain of religious and political differences between client and clinician. An Israeli‐American therapist's counter‐transference reflections around self‐disclosure and its impact on her Palestinian client will be the subject of investigation in the following paper.

Self‐disclosure has been increasingly examined in the relational literature over the past ten years in the context of the therapist's subjectivity within the therapeutic encounter (Aron, 1991; Renik, 1995). Few psychoanalytic writings, however, have focused on self‐disclosure as embedded within race and culture, and fewer still address the impact of religious and political differences between client and therapist, differences that, in the case of a Palestinian client and an Israeli therapist, reflect larger social and political conflicts. The transference‐countertransference dynamics around self‐disclosure and the way these shape the therapeutic encounter between a Palestinian client and an Israeli therapist will be the subject of investigation in this paper.     

Using psychodrama for information gathering

Based on the results presented here, psychodrama has a definite place in the treatment of acute and chronic psychiatric clients. It works especially well with these clients on an information-gathering level to elicit information about a client's past unresolved conflicts and feeling relating to them. This data is not often available in the social and psychological history. An additional benefit of this exercise is the accelerated acceptance of the new client into the open-ended, ongoing group. It has also proved to make future group sessions more meaningful to the new member. The implementation of psychodrama at the information gathering level has benefited the therapists clinically and, at the same time, enhanced the client's total participation in group.     

Defining the boundaries: social worker assessment of sexual abuse in a cultural context – multivariate analysis of personal and professional factors influencing social workers' labelling of intimacy behaviour

To explore personal and professional factors influencing social worker assessment of family intimacy behaviour in diverse cultural groups, a 27‐item questionnaire was mailed to a random, stratified sample of MSW‐level social workers. The instrument measured rank‐order responses to 10 questions about attitudes towards public exposure to sexual stimuli and rank‐order responses to questions about three vignettes depicting culturally informed family intimacy behaviour. The instrument also measured sample characteristics such as area of social work practice and per cent of caseload involving sexually abused as well as diverse clients. Completed questionnaires (n = 387) were analysed for association between respondents' definition of intimacy behaviour (dependent variable), attitude towards sexual stimuli, and intervening variables thought to explain variance in the dependent measure. Labelling theory provided a basis for hypotheses testing. When mean attitude scores were correlated with mean definition scores, Pearson's r returned a significant low, positive association between conservative attitudes towards exposure to sexual stimuli and definitions of cross‐cultural scenarios as sexual abuse. Holding attitude scores constant, regression modelling of the sample's definition of scenarios indicated that practice area, minority status, and per cent of caseload with sexual abuse clients were significant predictors of R² change in the dependent variable. Further analysis of data through regression tree modelling showed that a small group of conservative practitioners with ethnically diverse caseloads were more likely to label culturally influenced behaviours as deviant. Among conservative practitioners with less diverse caseloads, number of hours in sexuality training had a moderating influence on deviancy labelling. Tree modelling of the data also indicated that an ethnic minority subgroup within the sample accounted for the lowest ranking of scenarios as sexual abuse. Results support earlier work on social worker assessment of child maltreatment as a function of agency setting. Another implication for social work is the need for practitioners to understand their attitudes towards human sexuality in relation to assessment of diverse patterns of childhood sexual socialization.     

Institutionalized strategies in face-to-face encounters: focus on immigrant clients

The aim of this article is to explore how officials' institutionalized patterns of acting can be useful for understanding encounters between immigrant clients and representatives of a welfare organization. The data indicate that there are two fundamental social mechanisms at work: the materialization of the organizational ideology, and the cultural filter. Both have an impact on the type of action strategy chosen by an official in handling client problems. An analysis of the strategy outcomes according to the social mechanisms shows that: 1) The outcome will depend on the client's consent to the organizational ideology. Immigrant clients more often than other clients are assumed to have different views on, for example, sickness, work capability and retirement age; 2) Comparing clients to the image of an ideal-typical long-term sick person can lead to the definition of clients with different cultural backgrounds or those of immigrant status as deviant, and therefore problematic to deal with; 3) The cultural filter through which the officials interpret their clients' situation can be an important obstacle in understanding the responses of immigrant clients.
The study was conducted at a local social insurance office in a suburban area of a major Swedish city. Immigrants represented approximately 60% of the long-term sick people. The empirical material consists of observations of encounters and interviews with the officials working with rehabilitation of the long-term sick.     

How I wonder what you are: Children's songs as a source of mental and internal state information

This study investigated (1) whether children's songs could be potential sources of internal state information and (2) cross-cultural/linguistic differences in the availability of such information. We coded for expressions of mental states and other internal states in 255 English songs, likely accessed by children in the United States, and 255 Japanese songs, likely accessed by Japanese children. The majority of the songs in both samples contained at least one internal state expression, with songs containing four to five tokens and two types of internal state expressions on average. Japanese songs had more types of internal state expressions than English songs when comparing the two samples in proportion scores that controlled for the length of songs. However, differences between English and Japanese songs were negligible in the absolute frequency of tokens and types of internal state expressions, with the exception that Japanese songs were richer in ambiguous internal state expressions.     

Structuring Mental Health Within Senior Services: A Case Study of an Outpatient Mental Health Clinic Serving Latinos

The article presents a case study of an outpatient mental health clinic serving Latino older adults. The study explored staff perceptions on the clinic development and the context within an immigrant multicultural community. The study used in-depth, semistructured interviews with support staff, clinical social workers, and administrators. Interviews were analyzed using a thematic content analysis. The mental health clinic formation was perceived by staff as an ecological process stemming from the needs of the Latino immigrant senior clients. A close knit and interdependent culture allowed the clinic to adjust to diversity and changing cultural contexts.     

Structuring mental health within senior services: a case study of an outpatient mental health clinic serving latinos

The article presents a case study of an outpatient mental health clinic serving Latino older adults. The study explored staff perceptions on the clinic development and the context within an immigrant multicultural community. The study used in-depth, semistructured interviews with support staff, clinical social workers, and administrators. Interviews were analyzed using a thematic content analysis. The mental health clinic formation was perceived by staff as an ecological process stemming from the needs of the Latino immigrant senior clients. A close knit and interdependent culture allowed the clinic to adjust to diversity and changing cultural contexts.