Culturally Alert Counseling : A Comprehensive Introduction

A comprehensive, readable introduction to the cultural dimensions of counseling and psychotherapy is now available. National leaders in each topic have been selected to provide an accessible, yet thorough, presentation of culturally alert counseling. An introduction to the nature of counseling and culture begins the book, followed by chapters on Social Inequality, Race, and Ethnicity. The succeeding chapters reveal the characteristics, histories, mental health issues, and appropriate counseling strategies for each of eleven cultural groupings. The book ends with a thorough presentation of actual culturally alert counseling practice, Seven dimensions combine to make the book unique, namely thoroughness, inclusiveness, theoretical foundations, practicality, readability, activity, and modeling. In the first case, this book broadens the discussion of culture from ethnicity and race to include social class, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. Of particular note, in the area of ethnicity, all five of the major U.S. pan-ethnic groupings are presented, as well as Middle Eastern and South Asian people. The book is also inclusive of all people, including both those in dominant and non-dominant cultural groups. The assumption is that everyone has culture. Culturally alert counseling is also theoretically grounded in the first few chapters of the book, which lay out a guiding developmental vision of culturally alert counseling. Further conceptual foundations are laid in discussions of social inequality, social justice, social diversity, and critical consciousness. The practical dimension of the book is underscored by the inclusion of a chapter devoted to actual culturally alert counseling skills, an area that is needed by practitioners in this important work. Readability and interest are enhanced by the interweaving of case vignettes and experiential activities throughout the book. Finally, culturally alert counseling skills are modeled in an accessible, vital demonstration video that accompanies the book. Ultimately, readers will leave informed, moved, and changed by the encounters with culture that lie in these pages. They will also be ready to begin practice equipped with both a vision of the work and practical skills in implementing it.