Multicultural Encounters: Case Narratives from a Counseling Practice

Counselors and other mental health professionals are increasingly encountering clients who differ from them in terms of race, culture, and ethnicity. Unfortunately many have not been trained to understand how powerfully culture affects our view of the world. The series on Multicultural Foundations of Counseling and Psychology is an invaluable new resource from Teachers College Press that focuses on multicultural issues in counseling and psychology. The books in this series chart the development of this evolving new field and will help educators, psychologists, counselors, social workers, and other mental health professionals learn to balance culture-universal and culture specific approaches to treat a diverse population. This volume uses fascinating therapeutic encounters to help clinicians understand and respond to the needs of their increasingly diverse clientele. Murphy-Shigematsu urges clinicians to look beyond their assumptions and stereotypes to learn their clients’ cultures through eliciting key narratives. Keeping the client and therapist center stage, the author shows the complex ways in which their cultural self-narratives interact.