Trusting ole' wise owls: Therapeutic use of cultural strengths in African-American families.

Howard C. Stevenson · Gary Renard

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Racial and Ethnic Identity Research Counseling Practices and Supervision Counseling, Therapy, and Family Dynamics

Abstract

The development of competent cross-racial psychotherapeutic strategies requires that psychologists understand the underlying racial dynamics that can hinder therapeutic relationships with African-American families and address them. This involves identifying and cultivating family strengths during the process of psychotherapy. Key domains of African-American family strengths include the dependence on helpful extended relatives, transmission of cultural childrearing values, influence of a religious worldview, and family communication about surviving societal racism struggles, educational achievement, and Black pride and culture. These behaviors are expressed through the process of racial socialization. This article advises professional and research psychologists to appreciate and mobilize the oppression-survival strategies of many African-American families. The call for competent cross-cultural psychotherapy sparked considerable debate over the last decade when a host of researchers, supervisors, and clinicians acknowledged the absence of attention to the role of culture within the therapeutic process (Carter, 1991; Hunt, 1987; Jones & Korchin, 1982; Ponterotto & Casas, 1991; Ridley, 1984; Sue, Arredondo, & McDavis, 1992; Sue & Sue, 1990; Sue & Zane, 1987; Vargas & KossChioino, 1992). Sensitivity to the unique cultural values and behavioral expressions of African-American families has been advocated strongly by family researchers and clinicians (BoydFranklin, 1989; McAdoo, 1992). The terms race and cultural are interspersed throughout the article and are meant to highlight that prejudice and discrimination in this society is experienced in global (or biological) and specific (or nonbiological) ways. That is, African Americans are falsely identified as politically

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1992Multicultural Counseling Competencies and Standards: A Call to the Profession 1993Counseling the Culturally Different: Theory and Practice 2003The Strengths of Black Families 1969Black Families in White America 1987The role of culture and cultural techniques in psychotherapy: A critique and reformulation.1992"Most of the subjects were White and middle class": Trends in published research on African Americans in selected APA journals, 1970-1989.1985Race-related Socialization, Motivation, and Academic Achievement: A Study of Black Youths in Three-Generation Families 1985Black child socialization: A conceptual framework.

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