Multicultural Pedagogy in the Supervision and Education of Psychotherapists

Abstract

In this chapter, the vicissitudes of multicultural pedagogy in the supervision, education, and training of psychotherapists are presented. Pedagogical stumbling blocks that stem from many dilemmas that are common in cross-cultural interactions are described. They include adopting only sociopolitical ways of thinking about cultural differences, simplistic and cookbook applications of culture-specific information, and the power struggles that originate in the narcissistic “need to know” of supervisor and supervisee. Postmodern psychoanalytic, social constructivist, and feminist perspectives have the potential to address these dilemmas, and the ways in which these perspectives can be integrated into the supervision and training of psychotherapists are addressed. Case examples are used to illustrate the ideas presented.

KEYWORDS:

• African-American issues in psychotherapy
• multicultural issues in psychotherapy
• supervision