Building Cultural Competence to Enhance your Clinical Practice

One of the challenges of developing multicultural competence is the interconnection among the various components of identity or intersectionality.  Humans hold multiple identities based on our gender identity, racial or ethnic background, sexual orientation, and other “master statuses”; these identities influence our values, behavior, and relationships. A clinician’s ability to integrate various relevant components of identity into case conceptualization, treatment planning, and psychotherapy practice enhances the ability to work effectively with individuals from various communities and backgrounds.

 

The first part of this workshop will address multicultural practice from the perspective of intersectionality and introduce clinicians to a model they can use to guide explore the impact of intersecting identities on clinical practice. Participants will have an opportunity to learn how the various components of the model can be used to identify barriers to developing treatment relationships and ways to overcome these barriers.  At the end of the first part of this workshop, participants will:

1) Understand the concept of intersectionality as it relates to diversity

2) Learn a model that can facilitate the integration of diversity into clinical work

3) Explore ways the model can be used in clinical practice to enhance the therapeutic relationship

 

The second part of the workshop will focus on the use of the intersectional model in treatment planning and ongoing therapy. Participants will have the opportunity to apply the model to a clinical case, familiarize themselves with current literature on the development of multicultural competence and develop action plans to enhance their cultural competence from an intersectional perspective. At the end of the second part of this workshop, participants will be able to:

1) Understand how to apply an intersectional model to treatment planning and psychotherapy

2) Apply this model to facilitate the integration of components of intersectionality in clinical practice

3) Analyze the components of multicultural competence and develop action plans to enhance skills to address intersectionality in clinical practice.