Managing Worldview Influences: Self-Awareness and Self-Supervision in a Cross-Cultural Therapeutic Relationship

Abstract

Using qualitative research methods, a culturally diverse group of 22 graduated master's level marriage and family therapist interns were interviewed about their approach to relationship-building with a cross-cultural client. Interviews were conducted in southern California. Results indicate that participants rely on heightened efforts of self-supervision to manage the influences of their culturally informed beliefs and preconceptions of cross-cultural clients. Also, the findings suggest that self-supervision efforts are so pervasive that contextual variables contributing to psychosocial differences between therapist and client are relegated to secondary concerns. Implications for building therapeutic relationships and self-supervision processes are discussed.

Keywords:

• therapist bias
• cross-cultural relationships
• cultural bias