Keywords

psychotherapy, clients' cultural backgrounds, cultural adaptation, therapeutic practices

Abstract

This article summarizes the definitions, means, and research of adapting psychotherapy to clients’ cultural backgrounds. We begin by reviewing the prevailing definitions of cultural adaptation and providing a clinical example. We present an original meta-analysis of 65 experimental and quasiexperimental studies involving 8,620 participants. The omnibus effect size of d 5 .46 indicates that treatments specifically adapted for clients of color were moderately more effective with that clientele than traditional treatments. The most effective treatments tended to be those with greater numbers of cultural adaptations. Mental health services targeted to a specific cultural group were several times more effective than those provided to clients from a variety of cultural backgrounds. We recommend a series of research-supported therapeutic practices that account for clients’ culture, with culture specific treatments being more effective than generally culture-sensitive treatments

Original Publication Citation

Smith, T. B., Domenech Rodríguez, M., & Bernal, G. (2011). Culture. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 67(2), 166-175.

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2011-02-21

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/3977

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons

Language

English

College

David O. McKay School of Education

Department

Counseling Psychology and Special Education

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