Understanding cultural identity in intervention and assessment

the long version

Why is it so difficult to provide quality mental health care for multicultural populations? How can quality care be achieved? Understanding Cultural Identity in Intervention and Assessment centers on this dilemma. This text for multicultural courses in counseling, psychotherapy, clinical psychology, and social work begins with a description of the existing societal context for mental health services in the United States and the limitations of available services for multicultural populations. It documents the cultural competence a practitioner needs to provide adequate, credible, and potentially beneficial services to diverse clientele. It also presents a model for effective culture-specific services that emphasizes description and understanding of cultural/racial identity and the use of this information to develop cultural formulations that will increase the accuracy of diagnoses. To provide examples of this model, the author devotes four chapters to a discussion of mental health services for a variety of domestic cultural/racial groups: African Americans, American Indians/Alaska Natives, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans.